Torque wheels

Keith True said:
A few years ago I worked on a 29 pickup that the owner had torqued the lug nuts on.He had gotten the specs from somebody on the old Fordbarn.He had tightened the nuts to 110 foot pounds.I said you must mean the axle nut,he said no,the lugs.I looked it up and sure enough I found the post advising him on the lug torque.I found out when I went to take the wheels off his truck.I twisted the first lug nut off with very little effort.Most were still tight,but they all had Mae-Wested.Almost all of them broke when I tried to remove them.Now we had to replace all the studs,and if we had to do that,we might as well go to cast drums.Other than that the brakes were in excellent shape.Rotating his tires that day turned into a $1000.job.
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I remember that discussion/post ! Most here tried to correct what that one poster wrote, but, once the info is out there some will use it.
 
That's the great thing about the internet! Look up your question, and you can choose from hundreds of different answers!
Try the bulletins, or for an anachoronistic question like this a later Ford manual, and you get, at most, one lousy answer. Books are such a rip off!
 
Don't overthink using a torque wrench. Common sense works for most nuts and bolts on the Model A. You must remember that just because a certain nut and bolt can take a given torque, it's not always wise to use that MAXIMUM torque, Carb ears and manifold ears are often broken by people using some torque they read about for that size stud and nut. I watched a guy snap his manifold ears before he reached the torque he had in mind.
 
Well I inspected my wheels last fall and found 2 nuts were loose. Just test a few that were not and made them all the same with a plain crank/wrench.
 
Whenever tightening anything with more than one fastener holding it together, consistency is more important than the tonnage.
 
hmmm...just so happens I got an ad in the paper with HF coupon for 9.95 torque wrenches. Might just have to go buy one or two.
 
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