QWKDTSN ~ TURBO-WGN

The other day I lowered my PSS9s another half inch. Today while I was on my way to work I noticed that the car seeme to be making a slight grumbling or growling noise as it went along. Seemed too sudden for a wheel bearing to be going bad, but I was in a hurry since I was running late so I forgot about it. On the way home, however, I started hearing an intermittent thumping / slapping / clicking noise that reminded me of a CV joint going bad. It would start up sometimes when I turned a corner or put a load on the left front wheel. I could clearly hear that the LF was the corner it was coming from. Sometimes when I would brake, it would go away. I could also feel a slight vibration. While doing a mental inventory and after several stops to look under the car at the brakes, CV shaft, wheel, undercarraige, ETC, I had a sudden brainwave. I jumped out, grabbed my lug wrench from the tool kit, and went around the car. Three wheels' lugs were nice and tight, but the left front ones were all loose - some of them two or three turns loose. I remember tightening them, but I must not have tightened them enough, and after driving for the past few days, they were slowly loosening, and the movement of the wheel as they loosened allowed them to move around and loosen more and more.

Thankfully, I didn't lose any lugs, and I didn't lose my wheel. It was a sudden realization that made me think of what it might be, and I was right. I work on and fly in helicopters in my day to day job, and every single job or procedure that you can think of to do on the helo has an MPC, or Maintenance Procedure Card. Each MPC is literally step by step instructions for doing any job and you have to initial each step after completing it. When you're done, someone from the Quality Assurance office will come by and make sure everything's been done in accordance with the card and everything's torqued properly. It's far too easy to make mistakes when you're not following explicit instructions; I know I tightened those lugs, but it wasn't enough and it could have been very dangerous. Even when you're doing the simplest of jobs, stop and think! Go back and make sure you've done every step safely and properly, and if you can, ask someone else to double-check your work. It'll save your butt.

Milpitas2.7T

to any real components. I retreived the wheel a few blocks down the road (I was going around 35 at the time)..

This was in my RX7 (BoninRX)

FixedWing

And I know I torqued it. It has happened twice to me. Now I torque the wheels to 5 lbs over. My feeling is that the torque setting it too low.

Stephen

jwolf::ASP S3

2nd, i torque to ~98ft/lb.