Replacing Lug Nuts & Bolts

Video Transcript

"Replacing lug nuts and bolts. We are going to cover proper technique for removing and reinstalling lug nuts or bolts on an automotive wheel. In this case, we've got a hubcap that has to be removed. What I prefer to use is one of these plastic wedges, simply because it's less likely to mar the wheel or the hubcap. And, again, you can get these at most automotive stores and they're relatively inexpensive. So, once you have the hubcap off, you have access to the lug nuts. So, with the wheel - with the vehicle on the ground, in gear with the parking brake set, you either use the wrench that was provided with the vehicle or a breaker bar with the appropriate socket. You want to loosen the nuts, just enough so that once the wheel is off the ground you can remove them in their entirety. Now at this point, using a jack or other safe form of lift, you want to get the vehicle up in the air so that you can get the lug nuts the rest of the way off. All right, so at this point, you've got the vehicle safely elevated and the lug nuts are loose. You should be able to just spin them off by hand. All right. So, now the lug nuts are removed. If you were changing the tire, you can go ahead and remove the rim and tire at this point. And then, you want to put the lug nuts back on, thread them on by hand at first until they seat in the wheel. Okay. Now that they're seated, you want to take your wrench and just snug them up as much as you can. The wheel's going to turn a bit, just because there's nothing keeping it from not turning, necessarily. But, you just want to to get them snug enough that they can support the vehicle when you lower it back down. And so, at this point, we want to lower the vehicle back down so that the tire is making contact with the ground. You don't have to lower it all the way down, but you need enough, enough of the wheel to contact with the ground so that it won't spin when you do the final tightening. Okay, now that we've got the tire touching the ground again, we're going to go ahead and tighten the lug nuts. Optimally, you want to use a torque wrench when you're torquing your lug nuts. That allows for even tightening, you don't have to worry about over tightening the lug nut, under tightening it. Now you're, the manufacturer will specify the proper lug nut torque in the manual. If you've misplaced your manual, a good rule of thumb for a 12 millimeter stud like this is 70 to 80 foot pounds of torque, which is what I have my torque wrench set to. And you want to do a criss-cross pattern. This is a four lug wheel, so you want to go from one side to the other, and then one side to the other. This, again, ensures even torquing, prevents the wheel or the brake rotor from getting warped and can prevent vibration and the like. So, we're going to start with this lug, and we're going to tighten it until we get a click from the torque wrench. That means we're at our proper tightening torque. We go to the other lug, same thing. And then back to the other side and across. And we know that those are now torqued to the proper setting. The only thing left to do is to reinstall the hubcap, and that's that."