Our IFS 4x4 conversion was done by Clydesdale. That's probable a moot point though as to my knowledge they don't touch the rear end. Anyway....
We were on a short weekend trip when I started to notice a wobble in the steering. I pulled over and gave the front end a thorough examination. I figured it was front end because of the fact that I can't get the camber on the right front to an exact 0 degrees (it's still within acceptable standards). Couldn't find anything so resumed our trip. The wobble got worse. When I pulled over again my wife looked in our side view mirror and noticed one of our lugs nuts from the left rear wheel were on the ground. When I examined the wheel there was only 1 lug nut holding the wheel on! All the other lug nuts had completely sheered off.
When I examined the old lug nuts with the mechanic it looked like one of them may have been broken for awhile. My guess is that the wheel finally loosened enough that the wobble blew all of them off within a short time frame. I've had these wheels on since February after removing the winter set, but had them retorqued shortly after.
Has anyone ever heard of this happening? Any ideas why?
My van:
2006 E350 6.0 PSD
Clydesdale IFS 4x4 conversion
265 75 16's
If the lugnuts were ever significantly over-torqued (such as tire shop using impact gun with no torque limiter) that can yield the studs. Once this happens, they will never hold proper torque again, and will continue to yield until failure.
I Found the hub cap of my Impalla SS on the ground. I checked and re-torqued the wheel. Everything was fine. I thought it somehow fell off and zoned on a thief doing it. That night they came back and tried again but this time put the hub cap back on. Lost the tire doing 70MPH.
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2006 Ford 6.0PSD EB-50/E-PH SMB 4X4 Rock Crawler Trailer
I've seen the same thing happen when the axle studs were too long for the correct track rear wheel adapters. Not sure if you have them installed or not, but definitely worth looking into if you do.
The end of the axle stud cannot extend pass the face of the adapter, if it does, the wheel won't seat properly against the adapter.
You can also look at the back of the wheel. If you see marks caused by the long studs in between the holes, then you have a problem. My studs were ground down to shorten them.
Mike
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Alaska to Key West, Labrador and more
Prostate cancer survivor. See Thread Prostate cancer and Sportsmobiles
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I think you guys are on to something. I'm going to closely inspect them tomorrow. I can also see over torquing being a possiblitlity due to the young, immature fellas they had working in the shop I last had the work done.
Funny thing, on Tuesday I got my winter tires put on and today, went back to get them re-torqued. As soon as the guy popped the hub cap off one of my wheels I noticed one of the nuts was missing!!! I came home to find it sitting with the group of nuts for the other tires. Man, it's wheels guys! How difficult can it be?! It's got me re-thinking the summer/winter tire swap. I think I'll just invest in a torque wrench and do it myself.