What do i need to change a wheel?

Dont buy a one inch impact unless you have a compressor big enough to run it. My 1inch cost 150 at harbor freight. Cheapie but i dont need it often. A 3/4breaker bar with a extension will
Never mind. Above post was right. You need to have someone else do it

 

The wheel whisperer?

 

So is 500 ft-lb about the limit for torque on 1/2 inch drive? I was looking for "extra deep" sockets, and they are difficult to find in 3/4 inch drive. I found a couple for 1 inch or 1/2 inch drives (oddly enough). The deep sockets only allow for 1.5 inches of stud protruding from the nut, which itself is 3/4 of an inch on the hex area (those sockets are 2.25 inches inside). 33mm extra deep ones range from 3.15 to 9.62 inches internal for 1 inch drive, and 4.37 inches internal for 1/2 inch drive. One manufacturer says they make extra deep ones for 3/4 drive (6 inch internal, up to 16 even), but those are not sold online, so I'm waiting to hear back from them about distributors (or if it's worth a custom order compared to what's available for the other drive sizes). I'm seeing different amounts of thread protrusion on wheels from the nuts, which is uniform on the wheel, but longer than others, like the wheels on the opposite side, so I may want a deeper socket than the usual deep type. Perhaps it's a question of whether 1 inch drive would be better than 1/2 inch, if the extra breaking torque required took it past 500ft-lbs. I'd rather get the whole socket on the nut if the stud is sticking out a little too much for a deep socket to do the trick (I suppose rounding of the nut may happen if the socket doesn't go all the way over it).

Anyone ever had that come up (more than 1.5 inches of stud threads extending from the nut)?

Firstly I'll take the 3/4 in dr deep socket I just got out there and see how it fits over ones that look longer... I think the extra deep ones are made with something else in mind, but this is probably on the margin, and I may see longer studs too.

By the way, I think they use deceptive advertising to sell the deep ones online, they'll say it's six inches or longer over all, and I get a 3.5 inch socket with a plastic label insert to discard (so it seems that's as long as deep ones get in 3/4 drive, if not all drives, no matter what they say about external dimensions), besides they'll show you a picture of a 3/8 drive deep socket that looks much longer than it is wide, instead of a 3/4 inch one, so you can't tell by looking that it's shorter in proportion. Don't trust the dimensions they give, unless those state internal specs (one even claimed to be extra-deep, and on the manufacturer site I see a picture of it where around half its length is the plastic insert; coincidentally, they didn't disclose its full specs, when the socket itself is obviously not 6.4 inches long like they said, and many others list similar dimensions, without showing that they included the plastic label in their measurement).

 

Not sure if they are 1.5" longer but my trailer came from the factory with steel wheels but has extra long studs in case I, or anyone who owns it after me, wants to swap aluminum wheels on it. They do stick out there quiet a lot probably close to if not 1.5". You can get a 3/4" or 1" drive deep well 33mm socket at any Napa for about $20+/-.

 

Actually one of those is 1-5/16 inch instead of 33mm. A conversion chart says 1-5/16 is 33.3375 mm. Is there a noticeable difference between those sockets? I think the nuts are 32.6 something... and read that sockets are made slightly larger than nominal size (whereas the nuts are made smaller), so maybe 1-5/16 is even larger than that on the tool, beyond what a 33mm socket is.

Someone here said for hub piloted wheels, either 1-5/16" or 33mm should work. As if they're used interchangeably. I'm not sure if the non metric one would cause more wear and tear though. Haven't switched between standard and metric enough in general, but would think as torque gets higher, more play there would be noticeable, or eventually may be.

Okay, I found a blurb from a book on the subject.

Automotive Technology: A Systems Approach
SHOP TALK
Metric and SAE wrenches are not interchangeable. For example, a 9/16-inch wrench is 0.02 inch larger than a 14-millimeter nut. If the 9/16-inch wrench is used to turn or hold a 14-millimeter nut, the wrench will probably slip. This may cause rounding of the points of the nut...

Since 9/16 converts to 14.2875 mm, and that's less of a difference than with the 1-5/16 being .3375 mm larger than nominal, this would not be recommended either. The .29 mm is more like .01 inch, so I think the example there may be accounting for the 9/16 wrench being that much larger than nominal itself (or the nut being smaller), if I'm looking at the right numbers. I guess the idea is that metric would be closer, unless they make these nuts somewhere in between the two. You never know (parts are not necessarily identical at all times, evidently by how far the studs are sticking out or not, some might need torqued anyway).

 

Also, the aluminum wheel service manual from Alcoa says "if hex nuts with greater overall height are used, more stud length is required". Looks like the height of flange nuts may vary based on thread rod diameter, while at the same time remaining 33mm hex head. Yet, it seems like I'm seeing the same size thread rod in varying stud length, if it isn't a difference in torque there. I don't think it says how much more stud length is required either, or it may be part of a standard mentioned with that. I guess there's more than one reason for longer studs, so an extra deep socket wouldn't be out of the question.

It does say that "most U.S. manufacturers of highway trucks, tractors and trailers which incorporate the hub piloted wheel mounting system require wheel studs and cap nuts with metric threads. Most frequently these are M22x1.5". Now I'm not sure what they mean by height, if it isn't referring to thread diameter (I read that it was based on rod diameter elsewhere). Their examples of 2-piece flange nuts range from 26.52 mm, 50 mm, and 78.5 mm in height, with 33mm hex head, and M22-1.5 threads. A 22mm thread diameter isn't changing with cap nut height, so that's about as clear as mud.

Anyway, I'll go with a longer metric socket, if necessary, since they are requiring metric parts for those.

 

Yeah, I looked up the tortional shear average for a 1/2 inch alloy steel socket, and that's at 6300 in-lbs or 525 ft-lbs, so the 500 ft-lb torque range is about at its upper limit, not including breaking torque for getting the fastener in motion, so it could shear the 1/2 inch socket. Torque rating is lower than shear average, so that's around 425 ft-lb for 1/2 inch. Not sure if it applies to all materials for these, but I'd say a 1 inch would be a better choice between those two in general for that level of torquing, if 3/4 is not available. Torque ratings are said to be around 1300 ft-lb for 3/4 inch, and 3000 ft-lb for 1 inch, by the way.

Actually I think they were saying shear average is for hex keys and bits, and torque ratings are for sockets. Those were listed side by side for such sizes of each (and in that case, the low end of your average truck wheel torque is too high for a 1/2 inch socket at 450). Seems to coincide with torque wrench drive sizes getting larger as their torque ratings increase to approximately the same ones listed there. This may be counter intuitive, besides limitations on torque wrenches, as the socket sizes overlap in these drives, more so than how much they should be torqued on, which is perhaps less so toward maximum considering the extensions necessary to access wheel nuts.

 

You're over-thinking this. It isn't rocket science.

 

Just deciding which tools will work for me. They get rocket science wrong too, so you can't be too careful.

 

The odd 3/4 drive distributor got back to me, and they want 10 times more for an extra deep socket than the average deep one. Tempting, though the 1 inch extra deep one costs the same as an average socket adjusted for its extra length (there must be more of a demand for that). Don't necessarily need either one, the studs I thought looked long were only sticking out an inch. Then I checked a 1 inch drive standard socket on there, and the stud fit inside the hole beyond the nut well (which effectively extends the socket a half inch to the square connection), good then, even that could handle an inch of protrusion. The 3/4 inch one doesn't have that hole, just a square inside, so I don't know if all one inch drive sockets are more fitting that way, could be (if so, a deep 1 inch drive is half an inch longer than the 3/4 drive, for m22 studs at least).