Hello y'all! My name is Craig. I'd like to introduce myself and ask a question:
My 2007 F150 has 15K miles so I decided to rotate my tires the other day. I bought the truck new from the dealership and the wheels have never been off and I have never had the wheels removed before or even had a flat. The nuts were so tight I could barely loosen them with my breaker bar. I put my snap-on torque wrench on and discovered it took about 175 - 200 ft. lbs. to loosen the nuts! I looked at my owner’s manual and the torque spec is 150 ft lbs. which seems high to me. I rotated the tires and reinstalled the nuts and while torquing the nuts I broke a stud and I was only at 110 ft. lb. setting on my torque wrench. I didn't want to go any tighter on the next one because it felt like it was going to break also - it just kept turning and didn't feel like it was going go to 150. I had snap-on check my torque wrench not long ago and it was within spec. Now I am afraid I am going to have a problem because I can't get the nuts torqued to 150. I did apply a thin coat of anti seize to the threads, but that shouldn't matter, I've always done that on other vehicles. Anybody ever seen this? The studs are 14mm and I have OE AL wheels. Thanks in advance!

 

Studs are easy to replace...

 

how did you end up fixing it? i was checking the brakes on my 05 yesterday and somehow managed to break a stud the same way you did. i also thought 150ftlbs was high so I had my torque wrench set to 140. To make a long story short, I snapped one of the studs off. half of it is stuck in the lug nut and the other half doesn't even stick out past the wheel so it's impossible to get a lug on it. how did you remedy your problem and what torque are you now using?

 

Pull the rotor off and bang the broken stud out and replace with a new one from any auto parts store. Just make sure you buy the right replacement stud for our truck's. Torque may be off due to soft metal wheels, I rotate my every 5K with oil change and always torque to 100 FLBS...That's what my air gun is set to and never had a problem.

 

torque them to 150ft lbs or you may have one come off it is not fun to loose a wheel and tire

 

I torque all 7/8 lug wheels to 140 ft/lbs using a torque stick on an impact. 100 isn't enough, thats whats recommend for 3/4 lug wheels. And btw, you are never supposed to use a torque wrench to loosen anything, its very bad for the calibration.

Studs are simple to replace and like 5 bucks.

 

update: went ahead and replaced the wheel stud this afternoon. pretty straight forward fix. easy to tap out the broken stud after removing the caliper and rotor. was able to slide the new one in without having to remove the hub. just put it through the back side and then slide a socket over the end sticking out. then with the round end of the socket against the hub i put the lug nut on and started tightening it, so as the nut got tighter it drew the stud all the way into the back of the hub. would certainly be able to do it in a lot less time if i had to do it again.

 

You are NOT supposed to use anti-seize on lug nuts. That will definitely throw your torque #'s off, to say nothing of allowing the nuts to come loose a lot easier.... while you're driving, which is when you DON"T want them to come loose.

 

Very true, although when it says 150 lbs torque, that's what I prefer to torque 'em to. I'm not disagreeing with what you do, but I don't ever like to use an impact to torque lug nuts, not even with a torque stick.

 

Have any of you ever tried to loosen a nut tightened to 150lbs by hand? I for one don't carry an impact gun in my truck and know what a pain it is to loosen nuts that were tightened with one...