1997 LX450 Lost a Wheel - Broken studs and ground down bits (1 Viewer)

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It cost me $150 out of pocket to have it towed from Durant, Oklahoma to Joshua, Texas (thanks AAA). I did retrieve my spare. All the lugs were gone, of course. I considered your idea, but I couldn't get my bottle jack under the axle to lift it up and my farm jack, while handy in supporting recovery of other vehicles, is not tall enough to flex out the suspension enough to lift the rear axle on mine. I'm going to invest in a small and low profile floor jack just in case this sort of a thing happens in the future. It's something I've wanted in the truck for a long time, but never really justified needing.

^^^^

This is an excellent idea. They come in a tidy plastic case and don't take up much room. SO MUCH easier to use than the factory jack and much more stable. I keep one in each vehicle I own. Spend the money for one of decent though. Though you'll not need it often, it needs to work when you do.

Something similar to this (not necessarily this one).

Jack.jpg
 
^^^^

This is an excellent idea. They come in a tidy plastic case and don't take up much room. SO MUCH easier to use than the factory jack and much more stable. I keep one in each vehicle I own. Spend the money for one of decent though. Though you'll not need it often, it needs to work when you do.

Something similar to this (not necessarily this one).

View attachment 2564567
I was thinking maybe something like this. Not this one particularly, but something that can really squeeze in there. It might be a little tricky on the trail, but even there it could help in a pinch. https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200345429_200345429
 
You could have gathered your wheel from down the road, pulled a lug nut from each of the the other wheels, installed the wheel, tightened it down and moved on, although slower.

This ^^^

Embarrassed to say, I've lost a wheel off two different cruisers. One due to tire shop, one similar instance to you where I changed my steel play wheels, back to my alloy road wheels.

Mine was NOT due to different lug nut requirements, both my wheels used the same lugnuts.

I think in my case it was due to a fine layer of silt on the hub, and the contact surface was different on both wheels. My thoughts are the silt stopped me torquing the nuts properly.
After the first time I lost a wheel, I religiously use a torque wrench, and check them after about 50-100km

Both times I took nuts off remaining wheels and limped home at slow speed.

Both times for me, I had to replace the rotor only, left the dust shield as is, and replaced wheel studs for peace of mind.

I don't believe there's any more impact on wheel bearings in this event than when you hit a decent pothole.

Both instances for me was the front left wheel. The second time, was at 70mph, I had presence of mind to not hit the brakes immediately, and coasted to the side of the motorway, and slowed down to about 35mph before hitting the brakes. If I hadn't hit the brakes at all, the rotor would have been fine, dust shield would have had minor damage only
 
That said, I have put over 50K miles on one wheel on my truck that required the shank style nuts (style 3), but all I have are the conical nuts (style 2) and they were torques to 109 LB-FT for all. I didn't realize one wheel was different, even though I had them off and on many times.
After enough times, you would have started to wear the 60° taper into the aluminum on the wrong wheel!
I think in my case it was due to a fine layer of silt on the hub, and the contact surface was different on both wheels. My thoughts are the silt stopped me torquing the nuts properly.
After the first time I lost a wheel, I religiously use a torque wrench, and check them after about 50-100km
This was my first guess before reading the lug nuts were wrong. Could be both though. I have seen many people come into my tire shop with conical nuts on washer style wheels.

My point is that it is very important to make sure that there is no built up dirt between the wheel and hub. Years of dirt/silt buildup on a spare wheel is common. And yes you can torque it down to spec. After some driving, braking, accelerating, turning and those dirt particles can get ground down even finer and now you've created space and end up with looser nuts.

So clean your backside and check your nuts(after 50ish miles).
 

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