Thread: 1/2" drive extension broke

In early 2005 I had to replace the hub nut on my Freelander and as it requires about 320 ft lbs I bought a 2 2/2 foot high quality breaker bar - used it for a lot of things over the years - including another two hub nuts. Its main use was as my wheel brace for the 101.

After all its use, I was undoing one of the 101 wheel nuts the other day and it broke at the swivel end - the nut was not overtightened and I wasn't putting much force on it - it just broke and on examining the break it was clean with no evidence of a pre-existing crack or anything else - as they say .... happens.

I use a 3/4 Sidchrome breaker bar with a six point Teng 27mm socket and carry a metre of aluminium pipe that slides nicely over the handle. I don't have any problems with undoing the wheel nuts .

But, I hate those tin caps on the alloy wheel nuts!

The Defender has solids and so does the 'Daisy' D1, but 'Fred' still has it's tin nuts.

Getting back to broken Sidchrome. I have a small list of problems, the indent ball has dropped out of the short 1/4 extension and the plastic handle is loose on my 3/8 ratchet . Should we do a group claim to Sidchrome to achieve better service?

For many years now I have used a tension wrench for the final adjustment when doing up wheel nuts.

Cheers, Mick.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

..... So much for Tiawanese Sidchrome. I often buy Aussie made Sidchrome if I find it in a garage sale or swap meet.

That is what this was - got it at a clearing sale, used for years.

John

Another reason nobody else works on my car. Wheel nuts shouldn't ever end up that tight. I change my wheels reasonably often at home so I've never had an issue with corrosion and they go on using the same tools I'll have if I want to remove them on the roadside.

I always use the same tools to undo the nuts, but the problem with that is the missus dosn't weigh as much as me.
For her to crack the bind on the nuts is beyond her strength.

I tried to show her how to use the jack to support the return on the bar to crack the nuts, but !!!
.

I liked the cunning design of the wheel brace from the RRC. It had a folding handle. When tightening the wheel nuts, the handle will fold thus limiting its length so that one cannot overtighten the nuts.

When undoing the nuts, the handle unfolds and becomes twice as long thus allowing one to get more torque onto the nut to loosen it. I've never seen that design on another car.

Although we all do it (and yes I bet we all have at least once), breaker bars are not meant to have a pipe or extension put on them. Wheel nuts should also not be that tight. (and yes I have used a pipe on mine many times to undo the nuts done up by he-man)

Most cars wheel nuts are anywhere from 110nm to 150nm, which with a half inch drive torque wrench does not feel very tight.

I am fortunate enough to have a multiple torque snap on rattle gun from my trade days. I still use it to do up wheel nuts on its lowest tension and then use a torque wrench to get them right.

A DII Disco wheel nut tension is 140Nm as an example.

Oh and wheel nuts that are done up to uneven tensions are a massive contibutor to giving front brake discs runnout (brake shudder). Very common on a number of vehicles that rely on the wheel nuts and wheel to secure the disc. Commodores are very bad for this along with heaps of european cars.

Cheap half inch drive torque wrench fro repco for between 50 to 100 bucks, might be money well spent if you are swaping your wheels all the time, might not use one for building a race car engine though

Cheers

Dave