How many cracks to tighten a wheel nut to make sure its safe.? 
shirtbox2003:
How many cracks to tighten a wheel nut to make sure its safe.?
It depends how heavy you are,And how long the tube is on the wheelbrace, IMO Drivers or fitters just know when its correct, Of course this is just my humble opinion, I have driven wagons for 59 years and never had wheels coming loose, Im retired now of course but I still have a very great interest in Road Haulage , Regards Larry
Surely this is a wind up!!
If you land on your arse in a heap then you went one crack too many. 
Pete.
It depends how worn your wheelbrace is- could be a crack on the shin or a broken ankle.
It was reckoned that you should tighten each nut until you heard two ācracksā, but this could depend on how worn the nut faces are, if the wheel & nut are wet or dry, if someone has used oil or penetrating fluid, etc. We all have a go at the H&S brigade but the only way to be sure you canāt be blamed should anything bad happen is to use a torque wrench. And preferably to get a tyre fitter to use it!
No wind up Frankydobo, majority of firms never even heard of torque wrenches never mind having one, 3 cracks was my torque on dry nuts. 
Long time ago since I left lorries when the important part of any driver toolkit was a bottle jack, wheelbrace and 3ft of scaffold tube and yes for me 2 cracks taught me by an experienced hand and while we are on the subject, the offside drive axle wheel nuts were anti clockwise thread, a method once used on race cars, even still today mebbe.
Oily
Answerā¦zero. The only way is a torque wrenchā¦450lb ft. (ish 
)
Like Mr Dunbar I never had one come off, I did however have a couple of instances where the hub failed and all the lot (wheels, nuts, brake drum) parted company with the axle.
Once I got all the way back to the terminal (3 axle tank trailer, empty) before i realised there were only 5 sets of wheel on the back (it was night-time), the following day they found all the lot neatly parked in a front garden in Chesterfield.
Went to an AEC Marshall with a front puncture at Ipswich docks - driver couldnāt loosen wheelnuts. Sheered the first one off with a mutiplier before spotting the wrong handed studs had been fitted. Went to Mann EGertons and relaced the lot. 15 minute job took 3 hours. Turned out the Foreman had fitted the wrong ones rather than wait for a set of left handers to be delivered. Kept my gob shut and was the golden boy (for a while!) Jim.
I had a front tyre puncture on a site at Trafford Park (the ganger āguidedā me over a vertical steel peg marking the proposed new road!) and ATS came out and fitted a new tyre. The fitter used his torque wrench, and on the Chapel by pass over an hour later the wheel came loose! ATS said that I should have rechecked the nuts within the hour so took no blame for the slightly damaged studs, after that I checked them regularly with a brace!
Pete.
They usually leave a note on steering wheel if a wheel has been removed for some reason instructing the driver to have said nuts re-torqued after 50 miles this takes the blame off the tyre company/fitter if anything goes t-tsup.
They would do well to stay on for 50 miles after some of the " tyre fitters " Ive seen put the wheel on !
Policy with my lot is that the nuts must be torqued to the specified figure, then the whole lot should be left (not driven) for half an hour before being torqued again. Tyre fitters love coming out to usā¦
This also explains why most tyre fitters will do their utmost to change the tyre without removing the wheel at all.
Roymondo:
Policy with my lot is that the nuts must be torqued to the specified figure, then the whole lot should be left (not driven) for half an hour before being torqued again. Tyre fitters love coming out to usā¦This also explains why most tyre fitters will do their utmost to change the tyre without removing the wheel at all.
Tyre Services at Heaton used to supply us with Tyres, Their fitters used to fit super singles to our trailers without removing the wheels, Even with the nuts off the wheels were difficult to get off anyway, When we relined the brakes we used to pull the hubs off, Easier & much quicker, To get the wheels off we had to yark them several & I mean several times with a sledger, Not some one wanted to be bothered with when away down the road, I donāt suppose its any different now,Regards Larry.
The original question must have been about the older coned nuts and what was done years ago, I hope to hell no one is cracking the nuts on todays motors which should be torqued to the correct setting, if you are then buy a bloody torque wrench and do it properly. We donāt see the incidents of lost wheels so much today but it does happen and you can bet your bottom dollar its because the correct tightening sequence hasnāt been followed. We stopped Tyre Fitters whacking up the nuts with a powerful windy gun years ago too as it meant each wheel nut was not only way over its correct torque but each nut would be at a slightly different tightness, meaning an unequal setting which enables nuts to slacken at a later date with the inevitable result.
Nuts can crack even being set with a Torque Wrench but it tends to be an odd one or two as the wrench reaches its setting. With mixed fleets of differing wheel nut settings the range can go from around 500 to 700 Nm, so jumping on a wheel bar until the nuts crack once or twenty times will give no indication of the correct tightness. By the way its not only wheel nuts that have torque settings, every nut and bolt on a vehicle has a torque rating, mostly ignored in most cases as āexperiencedā fitters build up a knowledge over the years of how hand tight a nut or bolt should be, however when this comes to more technical sequanceās of tightening it is sensible to refer to the manufacturers torque settings, wheel nuts included here. Franky.
did a volvo eight wheeler the oather week wheels off relines.
Tourqued them up 650 to 700nm on the friday morning
finshed of the jobs only moved off the pit and in to the yard.
Monday morning it went out got to peterbrough and driver rang in
with loose wheel nuts.
Yep the 5$$t hit the fan for a bit lol.
Iāve known a few nuts have a crack at tensioning wheel nutsā¦
Iāll get my coatā¦ 
How many of you torque wrench nerds have the torque wrench checker to make sure the wrench is set o.k. and how many keep a torque wrench in the vehicle in case of a puncture,do modern vehicles not come supplied with a jack and wheelbrace or are modern drivers so up themselves to even attempt a wheel change,the crack is always good. 
shirtbox2003:
How many of you torque wrench nerds have the torque wrench checker to make sure the wrench is set o.k. and how many keep a torque wrench in the vehicle in case of a puncture,do modern vehicles not come supplied with a jack and wheelbrace or are modern drivers so up themselves to even attempt a wheel change,the crack is always good.
Yes previous company i worked for we had a guy come around every 6 weeks and checked and calibrated if nessercery
When i mentioned this the boss calmed right down
If coming out of spain with a step frame. full load of tiles, then shoes on top then have a blow out off side front both tyres,on the trailer ,then relise they have both gone, the last thing you worried about was cracking wheel nuts on, it was getting them off, you then put one blew one back on, with the good spare tighten the nuts up,
jack out go around the other sideā¦ jack up, take the 2 good ones off, and replace one with a blew one, and one god oneā¦,nuts on ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ,ā¦ then around the offside again jack in ,nuts off, wheels off,and put the good one on from the near side onto the off side so you now have 2 good ones on the offside ,so it looks good for anyone who would want to look .ie police and you put the blew one back in the carrier, and yes i did that, i was on for Pandora at the time from wexford all the way from CORDBO area back to CHERBOURG and not one kind sole stopped to give me any type of hand ,it was after that my attitude did change for the worse for all my fellow drivers that is when i did go as a loner.