# Torquing Trailer Wheels



## heruide (Feb 12, 2008)

Created 5/03/08​






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Well my father taught me that whenever you point your finger at someone you’ll have at least three fingers pointing back at you. 

“So what does finger pointing have to do with torquing wheel nuts or Ruide have you lost your mind?” 
Well not yet. However I wanted to share this because I realize if I were to use the same criteria I used on the RV books I reviewed over the last couple weeks and assess my SmugMug web page I would not get a perfect score. Yes I scored it and only got 21 out of 33 - so let’s stay there is room for improvement. 

If you remember there were several items that were not covered and one was torquing wheels. And guess what? I did not cover torquing on my web page, but that has now been corrected. So now you know the reason for this blog about torquing.

First why bother to torque your trailer wheels? There is the risk of either under or over tightening the lug nuts. Over tightening can cause the lugs to fracture and the wheel can come off and pass you as you are going down the highway. Believe me it happens. I still remember seeing one coming off a pickup truck that was travelling in the opposite direction as I was travelling to the Grand Canyon. 

The wheel was coming straight at me and it was not a pretty sight. Torguing can also save you the hassle of not being able to remove the lug nuts because some one over tighten the lug nuts when they replace your tire and you did not find out until you were on the road travelling. I’ve had that happen once and if it weren’t for a can of “fix a flat” I would still be on the road in the middle of no where. Under tightening can result in the wheel damaging the lugs and typically the lugs may come loose after a couple hundred miles after first being tightened and needs torquing.

Second, I know most folks don’t torque their lug nuts either because of the expense of a torque wrench or they don’t they know the value. Of course there are my wrench wielding buddies that tell me they don’t need a torque wrench but can do it just by the feel of it. 

That position reminds me of the guard at an airport in China whose job was to lift up your carry on luggage to see if it exceeded the weight limit. I was so glad that he did not have a calibrated arm and let me on the plane with my heavy suitcase.

Third, the truth is torquing lugs nut is not that much different that tightening them with a lug tool. You still have to do it in stages and use a crisscross the pattern when tightening. The only difference is adjusting the setting on the torque wrench after each stage.

So for a pictorial tutorial (try saying that quickly five times) on torquing trailer wheels please visit my SmugMug page.Ruide


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