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 Posted: Aug 27, 2014 08:17AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CooperTune

Maybe that's what I saw damage of a lug opening into a peg. I'm tired of the 008 look and everyone is so down on Falkins what is the take on the Dunlops that are twice any other in price. I'm wanting 4.5J minilites in S offset with 165/70s. Steve (CTR)

I had a set of Yoko A539's 165 60 12's which i liked a lot and are only abou $15 more than the Falkens. I currently have a set of 165 60 12 Bridgestone Potenza's mounted on 5 inch Alleycats now which i like better especially in the wet but they only seem to be available in Japan.

If in doubt, flat out. Colin Mc Rae MBE 1968-2007.

Give a car more power and it goes faster on the straights,
make a car lighter and it's faster everywhere. Colin Chapman.

 Posted: Aug 27, 2014 07:41AM
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Maybe that's what I saw damage of a lug opening into a peg. I'm tired of the 008 look and everyone is so down on Falkins what is the take on the Dunlops that are twice any other in price. I'm wanting 4.5J minilites in S offset with 165/70s. Steve (CTR)

 Posted: Aug 27, 2014 05:25AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CooperTune

Well I don't have either of those nuts. What I have is a set of chrome acorn nuts that came with the wheels. I picked up 16 of the Rover minilite 12s. Some came with nuts some not. There are at least two different wheels. The outer lip profile being different. Some look as if the locking lug nut was removed with a chisel. I will pick four that match and have them powder coated. Then make sure I have the correct nuts. Steve (CTR)

PS: I have a set of 5x12 look a likes with 165/12 Falkins. Tiny blemish on one rim and very good tread. Local pickup would be nice as I'm not excited about shipping them. 

Make sure all the Rover wheels are the same Steve. Some of them (RSP's i believe) came with the stud hole on the spokes where the more popular ones came with them in between the spokes, apparently the RSP's were deemed weaker or so the story goes.

The PO will ship the tires and wheels easily in groups of two of them banded together.

If in doubt, flat out. Colin Mc Rae MBE 1968-2007.

Give a car more power and it goes faster on the straights,
make a car lighter and it's faster everywhere. Colin Chapman.

 Posted: Aug 27, 2014 04:13AM
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US

Well I don't have either of those nuts. What I have is a set of chrome acorn nuts that came with the wheels. I picked up 16 of the Rover minilite 12s. Some came with nuts some not. There are at least two different wheels. The outer lip profile being different. Some look as if the locking lug nut was removed with a chisel. I will pick four that match and have them powder coated. Then make sure I have the correct nuts. Steve (CTR)

PS: I have a set of 5x12 look a likes with 165/12 Falkins. Tiny blemish on one rim and very good tread. Local pickup would be nice as I'm not excited about shipping them. 

 Posted: Aug 27, 2014 01:12AM
jeg
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An alternative nut to the stainless-steel-capped NAM9075 is the basic version of this nut without the stainless cover AJM1139 .

The peasants are revolting...          

"Gone with the Wind" - a brief yet moving vignette concerning lactose intolerance

 Posted: Aug 21, 2014 08:13AM
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Image Gallery

Was given this wheel. Found three cracked holes not readily visible from the outside. Not sure what this has to do with the topic  though.

 Posted: Aug 21, 2014 07:54AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex
Quote:
Originally Posted by malsal
Quote:
Originally Posted by CooperTune

12 inch Rover alloy wheels are cheap and can be picked up with good 145/12s. If they don't last any longer than suggested I should buy more. I think I have the correct lug nuts but will double back and check. I built this car from a bare shell and have maintained it for the last 100,000 miles. I'm very sensitive to sounds and even more so with a passenger. There was no fear of this wheel coming off, in fact I parked it and ran around in the Ford till I could limp her to the shop. It may be time to park it anyway. I have had several people I have known for years stop me at the store to tell me I'm driving that car way to fast. 1360 out 998 back in. I'm looking for a camshaft with a good idle and will pull from 1500 to 4500. 1500 in 4th is 35mph and 4500 is 104 mph. Steve (CTR)

Steve it should have the ones with the stainless removeable cap on them.

Nooooooooooo !!!

Don't ever, ever, remove the stainless cap - 99.9% of the time it buggers the nut as the bolt head underneath is a bum size.
They are also available in two sizes - 11/16" and 17mm.  Measure the ones you have and use the correct 6-point socket on them, or you will accelerate their demise.

Didn't tell him to remove it just gave that as a reference Alex. I too have been down the road where they were rounded off or removed and you cannot get a socket to fit. An easier reference would have been the ones with the floating washer seat i guess.

If in doubt, flat out. Colin Mc Rae MBE 1968-2007.

Give a car more power and it goes faster on the straights,
make a car lighter and it's faster everywhere. Colin Chapman.

 Posted: Aug 21, 2014 07:33AM
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GB
Quote:
Originally Posted by malsal
Quote:
Originally Posted by CooperTune

12 inch Rover alloy wheels are cheap and can be picked up with good 145/12s. If they don't last any longer than suggested I should buy more. I think I have the correct lug nuts but will double back and check. I built this car from a bare shell and have maintained it for the last 100,000 miles. I'm very sensitive to sounds and even more so with a passenger. There was no fear of this wheel coming off, in fact I parked it and ran around in the Ford till I could limp her to the shop. It may be time to park it anyway. I have had several people I have known for years stop me at the store to tell me I'm driving that car way to fast. 1360 out 998 back in. I'm looking for a camshaft with a good idle and will pull from 1500 to 4500. 1500 in 4th is 35mph and 4500 is 104 mph. Steve (CTR)

Steve it should have the ones with the stainless removeable cap on them.

Nooooooooooo !!!

Don't ever, ever, remove the stainless cap - 99.9% of the time it buggers the nut as the bolt head underneath is a bum size.
They are also available in two sizes - 11/16" and 17mm.  Measure the ones you have and use the correct 6-point socket on them, or you will accelerate their demise.

 Posted: Aug 21, 2014 06:59AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CooperTune

12 inch Rover alloy wheels are cheap and can be picked up with good 145/12s. If they don't last any longer than suggested I should buy more. I think I have the correct lug nuts but will double back and check. I built this car from a bare shell and have maintained it for the last 100,000 miles. I'm very sensitive to sounds and even more so with a passenger. There was no fear of this wheel coming off, in fact I parked it and ran around in the Ford till I could limp her to the shop. It may be time to park it anyway. I have had several people I have known for years stop me at the store to tell me I'm driving that car way to fast. 1360 out 998 back in. I'm looking for a camshaft with a good idle and will pull from 1500 to 4500. 1500 in 4th is 35mph and 4500 is 104 mph. Steve (CTR)

Steve it should have the ones with the stainless removeable cap on them.

If in doubt, flat out. Colin Mc Rae MBE 1968-2007.

Give a car more power and it goes faster on the straights,
make a car lighter and it's faster everywhere. Colin Chapman.

 Posted: Aug 21, 2014 04:42AM
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US

12 inch Rover alloy wheels are cheap and can be picked up with good 145/12s. If they don't last any longer than suggested I should buy more. I think I have the correct lug nuts but will double back and check. I built this car from a bare shell and have maintained it for the last 100,000 miles. I'm very sensitive to sounds and even more so with a passenger. There was no fear of this wheel coming off, in fact I parked it and ran around in the Ford till I could limp her to the shop. It may be time to park it anyway. I have had several people I have known for years stop me at the store to tell me I'm driving that car way to fast. 1360 out 998 back in. I'm looking for a camshaft with a good idle and will pull from 1500 to 4500. 1500 in 4th is 35mph and 4500 is 104 mph. Steve (CTR)

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 03:50PM
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Just got back from Laguna Seca from the vintage race meet and I have to say I must have worn my torque wrench out! every time the car went out check wheel nut torque!! It is important to torque wheel nuts and bolts to the correct torque every time, overtight is just as bad as too loose if not worse as a loose nut will back off and cause a wobble, overtight usually just snaps off and the extra load breaks the rest and down yougo......................

Mini's are like buses they come along in a bunch

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 01:51PM
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Come on you guys, don't you know Steve has a screw loose?


This is not a wheel nut story, but related..... Seriously, trust no one:

My wife's 1970 VW Squareback had a rubber fuel line under the engine replaced at the local VW dealer. A month later, we drove to Maine. On the interstate during a driving rainstorm, the engine died. I coasted to an underpass to get out of the rain,  smelled and saw the fuel dripping underneath.  So I jacked up the car (no safety backup jackstand), and found that the brand new rubber fuel line had popped off because there was no hose clamp at all , or it had never been tightened and fell off when the hose popped off.  Luckily, just replacing the hose on the nipple had enough hold to hold it until we could drive away and spend 10 cents.

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 09:44AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex

A friend arrived at Castle Combe a few years ago with a rear wheel only held on by two studs and missing nuts on the other three wheels.

Turns out he'd used normal 60° taper nuts instead of the Rover Minilite specific nuts, and they wriggled loose, breaking two studs...

I was going to ask Steve if he did that as they will keep coming loose.

If in doubt, flat out. Colin Mc Rae MBE 1968-2007.

Give a car more power and it goes faster on the straights,
make a car lighter and it's faster everywhere. Colin Chapman.

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 08:42AM
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GB

A friend arrived at Castle Combe a few years ago with a rear wheel only held on by two studs and missing nuts on the other three wheels.

Turns out he'd used normal 60° taper nuts instead of the Rover Minilite specific nuts, and they wriggled loose, breaking two studs...

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 08:20AM
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Regarding the uniquely low torque required by the stock mini studs, and how easy / likely it is that they've been overtorqued before: once a fastener has been overtorqued it will yield under less load than what it was originally designed for (some permanent damage is caused by being stretched beyond its yield point). Oftentimes, torque loss resulting from this kind of yield will not occur until several miles have passed.

This effect is not always going to cause trouble, and if it does, will not always result in a crash, but for a part as important as a wheel stud it is a really good idea to replace them all when the opportunity arises (like, during a rebuild). When replacing these studs, it is wise to buy higher grade ones to allow "'murican" levels of torque (when you use a higher grade stud you don't need to increase the torque because the spring rate remains the same, you just get more safety margin).

If a fastener that was torqued by you ever comes loose, that is a really good sign that it is damaged beyond safety (by some DPO) and should be replaced as soon as possible.

When in doubt, although it is contrary to "common sense", it is safer to slightly undertorque fasteners, than over torque them, because of this permanent yield issue.

typical OEM bolted joint design includes a large (often +/-40%) tolerance to allow for this sort of mishandling, but the fact that we do sometimes see this issue is evidence that even that much tolerance is not large enough to guarantee damage will not occur in the field

Norm

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 08:18AM
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CA

Many. many years ago (back when i was young, drove an MGA and lived in a city apartment - mid-60s) my brother phoned me late one Sunday night.  He was on the other side of the city and asked if I could bring a wheel wrench.

So...I drove over with the wrench to find him with his LWB Land Rover that he had just driven 375 miles from Williams Lake, through the Cariboo, the Fraser Canyon to Vancouver.

He had been stopping regularly to tighten the lug nuts with his fingers and they were raw.  He also had his belt over the rim of the steering wheel to pull back the throttle pedal on deceleration.

Though it was very late and my wife would not be happy, I said come back with me (it was on his way home) and stop in for a coffee.  Just after he turned off the main street into my lane the exhaust fell down.  So there I was under the Land Rover in a city lane after midnight putting the most suitable bolt/nut/washer combination I had to work rehanging the exhaust.

He took the Land Rover to a shop for a look over and to address the throttle and exhaust issues...they found that there were NO NUTS on the bolts through the front spring shackles...both fore and aft.

Lucky he did not die that day.

 

 

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 05:22AM
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I'll add my part. We restored a '68 Mercury Cougar back in the early 2000's. After it was all said and done, we drove it to the lical firestone on the crappy steel wheels and lumpy tires. We had them mount new tires, balance, then do an alignment. 

 

A couple hours later, we got our car and headed home. As we started driving we heard a weird sound every few hundred feet, and the tires didn't feel balanced at all. And about 1 mile down the road we were on an overpass and saw someone's wheel come rolling past us. And it looked an aweful lot like that new set of wheels we had just put on... because it was our left rear wheel. Turns out all 4 lugs had conpletely let go and the wheel was gone. Fortunately we still had the front tires and one rear so we could stop the car on the shoulder of an overpass... 

 

Turns out the firestone hadn't torqued ANY of the lug nuts. When we stopped we had only 8 of 20 lugnuts left almost lost all 4 wheels. No body damage, but almost a wreck on the highway. 

 

Bottom line. I will always insist on watching the mechanics torque my wheels by hand right in front of me. I don't care how crazy it makes me seem. 

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 04:58AM
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And, the wheel nuts are only torqued to 40-45 ft/lbs....
Not like 'Murican wheels where you just go gorrilla on 'em. Do that on a Mini, and you'll be buying some studs.

 Posted: Aug 20, 2014 04:37AM
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Before the big Mid Ohio event I swapped out a set of tens for a set of Rover 12 minilite style. While the tires were very nice the wheels were resprayed several times. I did not have time to pull the tires and have the rims powder coated. I torque my wheels so had no concern about them. Here a couple of months later I heard a noise from the left front. It sounded just like the wheel bearing that seems to go out on that corner every 5 years or so. That would convert to 40/50 thousand miles. I pulled and pushed the wheel to see if there is any play. None in the bearing felt. I did pick up a little slop in the inner joint of the steering rack. It was a rotational sound like a disc wobble. With plenty to do I took it to the shop to see what was going on. I jacked it up then realized I should have left it on ground to loosen the lugs. At that point I found two lugs finger tight and the other two snug but not tight. I removed the wheel and checked the suspension the checked the wheel and the lug seats. I lightly wire brushed the seats and reinstalled the wheel. Torqued all four and there was no more noise. I know somewhere my bud NJ was watching over me. Steve (CTR)