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I work at a tire shop and we are required to apply anti-seize to all wheel studs when removing wheels. Keep into consideration that many people go years without removing their wheels which gives plenty of time for the lug nuts and studs to rust on and seize up making them difficult to remove, which we have to deal with often. We remove hundreds of wheels a week and have never had a customer's wheels loosen or fall off even after not having their tires serviced for years. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Yes, I've always lube'd my wheel studs/ lugnuts before torquing them down and have never had a problem with them coming loose. Disclaimer: I am not a certified mechanic and advise you to research what is best for your situation. Fuck it!
It's hilarious because the torque difference is like 10lb, your studs aren't going to fail if they are over torques by 10lb even 40lb. What I have had happen is a roadside flat tire, I used the crappy tire iron that came with the car to take the wheel off.. 3/5 studs broke leaving me stranded. Never had a lubed stud fail on me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good engineering dictates: 1. Decide the necessary clamping force. 2. Pick a stud that when lubed with anti-sieze and torqued to X lb/ft will provide 100% of necessary clamping force at 50% of force necessary to destroy the stud. This allows for human error. But this means a bigger fastener , more $.
It’s a bit late in the day but I’ve anti seized wheel studs and bolts for 40 + years and never ever had a bolt break or loosen or a wheel fall off . On the counter side I have had wheel bolts break because they were seized in and simply either tore the threads off or twisted off the stud or made the bolt almost impossible to remove . I know exactly which is better and I’m sticking to it thanks .
So glad I stumbled upon this vid. I’ve coated my lug studs for years (since we live in the rust belt) and ran into trouble for the first time tightening our 2023 Jeep GC L lug nuts to the very high but manual required spec of 130 foot pounds. Trying to reach that spec with permatex anti-seize on the stud and lug nuts actually caused two of our studs to rotate with an inability to reach the spec. I initially thought it was a manufacturer defect. Our local Jeep dealership had to replace the entire setup. To me, the higher the torque spec, the more damage can be done if using anti-seize. Thanks again for posting.
had a neighbor who hydrolocked his lug nuts, they came up tight, but it was because the antiseize was trapped in the nut preventing it from bottoming out. are your lug nuts open at the end?
Very informative and professional explanation of the phenomenon. It still leaves me with the problem of what you would do on a cold dark night in the middle of nowhere when you can't get the lug nuts loose because they have rusted on. It seems that those smart people you referred to have come up short or don't care about what may happen in the real world. Since the lubricant you used is called ANTI seize I think that it would be good practice for the engineers designing these systems to take the likelihood of seizing nuts and bolts into their calculations and provide a torque specification for users who want to avoid the possibility of seizing into account.
Thanks Byon Bill! The engineers definitely take this into account. I can't say for certain, but from my own experience I think it is a choice of the lesser of two evils. Although bolts that have anti-seize and the correct torque applied should theoretically not loosen off during normal use, sometimes this happens. It can be due to vibration or micro movements relative to the two parts, eventually the lugs loosen. When no anti-seize is applied, the bolts may seize a little (as you experienced) and this may prevent them from backing off. Although this is an inconvenience, it is the lesser of two evils compared to your wheel lugs falling off while you drive. Another reason I can think of is that when people apply anti-seize, it is not always uniform, the same type, on just the threads vs the threads and the underside of the bolt/nut, etc. It introduces many more variables into the equation and the friction value may not be consistent each time. Whereas dry is, well, dry. Less things to take into account so it's easier to just supply a dry torque value. That's what I can think of off the top of my head. Thanks for watching!
Byon Bill it sounds like the scenario you came up with is from just using your impact gun to put on your wheel lug nuts and not setting your gun to the one setting and barely getting them tight. Your problem may start with the person who Services your wheels. You need to torque in the air with the brakes on your your vehicle. Over torquing or putting them on with an impact. Is the real problem. There is a solution though. If you ever grab a nut with your finger and tighten it as hard as you can just barely tap it with a hammer and you will see it will move. If you need to loosen a nut that's been impacted to put on. then it needs to be impacted to take it off. just smack the tire iron or socket with a hammer as you are trying to loosen it and it will come free.
Do not impact lug nut when installing it. A lot of store use impact gun and they have massive torque. Overtighten and the rust is what give you problem. As long as you torque it to spec, wheels won't come off and the nuts won't rust stuck in there.
Embrace Racing. 🤔 I’ve been anti seizing my nuts since I’ve owned my own vehicles 16 years now (yes a millennial) on Over 12 different vehicles. I typically torque them to the same specs as recommended and never had a lug nut come loose. But they do come loose a lot easier when you want them to. The other alternative has been broken 1/2” ratchets, sockets, and the cheesy cheap breaker bars that are included from the factory would strip and or bend.
I own a Toyota and for decades now I always applied anti-seize and then applied 75 ft-lbs to the nut with the anti-seize on it. I'm now going to reduce the torque down to only 80% of the rated 75 ft-lbs, and torque the nuts up to only 60 ft-lbs just to make sure I don't over-tighten them. Thanks for this information.
I never discount the life experiences of anyone's Granpa. I weigh the information carefully. Just as I do from someone like this who demonstrates results with gauges. There are frequently outside factors that must be considered 🤔 This was a excellent presentation. Something else I've learned is that if you have a repetitive task to execute , find the old guy and the lazy guy to do the job, you can get good info that way, frequently the lazy guy will find the most efficient way to do it. Cuz he's lazy lol.
You probably dont care but if you are stoned like me during the covid times you can stream pretty much all the latest series on Instaflixxer. Been streaming with my girlfriend for the last days :)
Interesting. Ive been working in cars for over 50 years. When working on my own cars I have generally always used anti-seize on the lug nuts/bolts and have never had one problem in all that time. Also use it on any nut/bolt that I know will be needed to remove for future repairs such as the EGR valve I recently replaced. Just lucky I guess.
I use some kind of anti seize or lube on almost everything. I hate seized and rusted fasteners. I've never had a problem doing it in 20 years. If it's something I have the wheels off of a lot I simply use some oil for my street vehicles anti seize it is.
I use lube all the time but maybe theres a caveat . Being a professional mechanic for 30 years and hobby mechanic before and after, one tends to gain a clear sense of torque required. Cant expect everyone to develop that same sense so i can understand why some manufactures and shops set specs and guidelines. Problem is, some torques are dry, some lubed. Why not lugs lubed? It gives much more accurate torque. Ive installed many critical parts on turbine engines as well as wing bolts and spark/igniter plugs that call up a thread lube. Many others dont but on aircraft its rare to be dealing with fasteners in a environment remotely as harsh as wheel lugs.
I feel like the pros of using anti-seize outweigh the cons. I use grease, torque to spec, and re-torque after the car's been driven a good 50 miles or so. They are built so over spec, they can handle it, and they aren't going to seize. And there's no way anti-seize is getting them tight enough to warp rotors. I have seen way, way more lugnuts snap during removal than during tightening. There's also the problem of less than perfect studs and or lugnuts decreasing the load on the hub and possibly loosening over time, (I saw this happen less than a year ago on a relatives car). Anti seize will help with this problem.
i always throw antisieze in between the rotor and hub and wheel and rotor. I accidentally usually get them on the threads of the studs and just tighten down as hard as it'll let me with a tire iron. Never had an issue lol
Great video! This will come in handy at work. I run into this issue quite often. Been doing tires and suspensions over 20 yrs. I live in the Midwest and because of the weather, moisture, salting the roads in the winter oxidization and rust is guaranteed. This can make it a pain to remove wheels. It’s not uncommon for people to grease up their hubs, lug nuts and studs making it easier the next time you have to remove them. But I definitely don’t recommend it on studs or lug nuts. We actually have to remove it with brake cleaner when we come across it. It’s mandatory! Greasing the studs or the lug nuts and then torquing at factory specs can actually stretch the studs to the point where the nut threads no longer line up with the bolt threads. When this happens they’re a nightmare to get off and back on again. This also can cause a cross thread and the stud now has to be broken off and replaced. It’s caused by over torquing. Grease or anti-seize allows the bolt to turn well past its dry torque specification. By removing your wheels seasonally for a simple rotate or balance usually eliminates this issue anyway. The longer the wheels stay on the vehicle the more likely they wheel oxidize or rust on. So instead of greasing them up just remove them once in a while. Lol... It even says right on the box of anti-seize do not put on lug bolts or nuts. Wheel retention is extremely important. A little grease on the hub is fine but putting it on the studs or lug nuts can alter the clamping force. It’s definitely not recommended. Both the car manufacturer and TIA say a dry metal on metal torque is required. But if you insist on greasing them bad boys up I suggest under torquing them by 25 percent and re-torque them multiple times after driving to insure they haven’t loosened.
Would be interesting to see what impact antisieze has on corroded lugs, I'm guessing it probably brings clamp load closer to "new' specifications. As a rule I antisieze all my lugs and use a torque wrench, never had an issue with stretched threads or broken studs.
There is a video on RUclips where a guy does the same test with new, corroded and corroded and lubed bolts. Corrosion reduces clamping force to ~30% of clamping force of a new bolt. Lubing it brought it back to ~80%
I've been an ASE certified mechanic for 11 years worked on thousands of cars and owned many cars for hundreds of thousands of miles and yet the ONLY problem I've encountered is lugs without antiseize on them. Every time some crack head at a tire shop blasts your lugs off and or on, at full speed with a impact gun is what will get this problem started. I do what my instructors had tought me and it never fails, ever. Now over applying antiseize is bad and less is more when it comes to high load applications but in mine and every ASE certified master tech teacher I've ever learned from, has the derect instruction to use it after factory bolt coatings have been compromised. I'm interested in diffrent types of antiseize and measurable amounts in application alongside the effects of heat/cold and material grade that had antiseize applicated. Re-torque lugs you use antiseize on, is in my opinion strongly advised as over applying will allow spec to looses as where just enough will stay in spec. Remove excess if torque spec fell out after 50 miles, then again at 50 miles if there was a correction. [do it right the first time] Spark plugs on another note can react negatively with antiseize especially those with a low torque rating to begin with but otherwise high torque plugs, do just fine and prevents the use of adding a helicoil down the road. My experience is tried and true with time to tell and all I suggest is if you do use it, don't over do it. .5-1 milliliter appropriately placed will do its job correctly but do cover all the threads. Application is KEY! A shirt ton of the stuff is all bad and unfortunately in my opinion voids this experiment, I like the example though! To add some gravity, I placed 1st in Skills U.S.A., a national competition for mechanics.
Thanks for weighing in! I will agree with you that for re-torqueing there is a place for anti-seize. The thread surfaces get chewed up after the first torque application and then friction increases, thereby reducing preload on subsequent applications of torque. Some amount of anti-seize can "restore" the original friction properties and give you the initial preload. In my opinion, however, most people blasting lug nuts on and off are not 1st place ASE certified mechanics and they will definitely not measure out the amount of anti-seize being applied. Most people don't even recheck the torque on their lug nuts after 50 miles. So the problem becomes that people will over do it with the anti-seize and they over tighten on top of that (no torque wrench, no torque stick on an air gun, etc.) Professionals such as yourself take much greater care in what they do.
Gamma Light - I was introduced to Anti seize compound in 1960. It was provided to me at a Chevrolet dealership I worked at as the factory recommended cure for the problem we were having with steel studs damaging the threads on the newly introduced aluminum Corvair engines. The advise of using it sparingly is correct. I left the automotive business in 1962. I continued to work on my own cars for fifty years and I still have the same can of anti seize. No wheels coming off or spark plugs pulling the threads out of heads in all that time.
I agree. Less is always better when applying anti-seize but it is definitely necessary in certain - not all - instances. For example, did you know that NGK spark plugs have a proprietary anti-seize on the threads from the factory? However, once removed they have to have anti-seize added if you want to re-install them. Sparingly, of course.
Very interesting video. Thanks for taking the time and effort to research/prepare and post. While I don't work on cars, I do build many and maintain all of the firearms which I own/shoot. For the AR's that I build, I regularly use anti-seize compound in lieu of thread-locker, whenever torquing both the barrel nut and the buffer tube to the upper receiver as well as when torquing the flash hider to the barrel. In these instances, at least one and often times both thread surfaces (which are either/both aluminum or steel, depending) are black-anodized and thus quite "rough" in comparison to the machined thread surfaces found on automotive lug bolts/nuts. Granted, said firearms don't encounter the bending and/or shearing forces described in your video, however said weapons do experience high temperatures (e.g., the barrel nut-to-upper receiver connection easily reaches nearly 400 degrees F whenever firing long strings of sustained rapid semi-auto fire while the barrel-to-flash connection hider runs near 275 degrees F during the same firing sequences. In addition, vibration is quite severe. After firing tens of thousands of rounds under all manner of firing sequences and conditions, not a single anti-seize/torqued connection has come loose during firing and/or after cool down. However, whenever I want/need to subsequently remove/replace a barrel, etc., the connections can be easily unscrewed and then later on re-assembled, all without damage to the expensive parts involved. I've had to remove factory-installed/assembled screws (e.g., on my FN SCAR's) that had been either red/blue-LockTited and which required copious amounts of direct heat (I.e., propane torch flame) in order to soften the LockTite to where the connection could be unscrewed - when re-assembling, I cleaned/removed all the remaining LockTite and substituted Permatex anti-seize compound and re-torqued - all with great results. Similarly, using anti-seize in lieu of thread-locker on the small fine thread machine screws used to mount riflescopes - works quite well. Although the temperatures experienced during firing are lower at these points, the vibration is still quite severe and the torqued/anti-seize connections never loosen except when purposefully removed to change a scope, etc..
Here's an idea. How about some chemical/petroleum/mechanical engineer type devise an anti-seize that does not lubricate so a lug nut can be torqued to its specified value to put the bolt in its design spring range. Seems like there should be something like that specifically for automotive use.
Good info. However, it has to be remembered that friction changes as lug bolts corrode so that throws theoretical calculations off. I've known for 55 years (since my first car) that it is not recommended that lug bolts be lubed. However, I have lubed them for most of that time and I've never experienced a single problem nor has anyone else I know that lubricates them including professional mechanics. I do, however, generally torque them to slightly less ft/lbs.
Lots of people don't realize this though... or they are too liberal with the anti-seize / grease and they don't reduce torque... plus its hard to say how much. The engineers who designed the car also know that friction increases with corrosion and leads to reduced preload which is why they chose the torque value they did for the lug nuts in the first place. There is ample headroom on preload to account for reduced clamping force with corrosion. So even if you keep on using the recommended torque value you should be safe.
To all of you who are terrified of using any form of lubrication on lug nuts, whether it be oil, grease, or anti-seize, NASCAR has a dry film lubricant applied to the wheel studs on the race cars. Anything added to the threads/nut surfaces that alters the coefficient of friction is considered a lubricant. And, yes of course reduce the torque of lubricated lug nuts by 30%, but that number isn't as ultra critical as some would have you believe, due to safety margins. Dry torque specs will bring the tensile load to 75% of stud yield or 'Proof' load, so there is still a big safety margin to work with. The 30% reduction in torque on lubed threads still brings the stud to the same 75% of yield, so there's still the same safety margin to work with. Using the dry torque spec on lubed nuts will bring you right up to the limit of yield stress before damage is done, but i believe there's still an additional 10% safety margin built in to the max yield stress numbers.
This is mostly true but lacking some important information that may lead people to the wrong conclusion. First, you are correct that torque specs for reusable fasteners are generally recommended to be calculated for around 75% of the proof strength (not yield strength - they are related but different). BTW the few wheel studs torque specs I looked at were more like 65-70%. However the crucial bit of information that is missing here is that even a perfect application of the torque spec is no guarantee that this will be the resulting preload. The 75% figure is only the average result. There is a huge variability in this. DOD document MIL-HDBK-60 states a variance of +-25% in preload for a given torque figure, while a test by Blake & Kurtz on 20 identical dry bolts torqued to the same figure resulted in variance of +25 -31% in preload. The bottom line is that a torque spec calculated for 75% proof strength may result in as high as 94% of the proof strength in some bolts. That 94% is not a coincidence. The 75% rule of thumb was chosen to guarantee that even the outlier bolts will not exceed their proof strength, so no bolt will acquire a permanent deformation, hence allowing reusability. The margin is therefore very low for some bolts, so if dry torque specs are used as is on lubricated bolts some may deform with all the implications of that. This huge variability is partly why using torque to achieve a given preload is avoided in critical fasteners, and instead more advanced methods are used, like a prescribed amount of rotation, DTI washers or bolts stretched a prescribed amount.
It's a shame the guy making decent technical content embraced your comment with a heart. This is terrible information no one should follow. @asjc27 pretty much nailed it in that 75% is the target but from testing the OEM knows what they ACTUALLY achieve AFTER relaxation of the joint with their $3,000 electric torque wrenches. Depending on the joint, OEMs design a torque or torque to angle (not yield) joint to 50% of proof load. This is usually the WORST case scenario (not better because you have 50% margin) which was partially covered by the video because you're way more likely to unload the joint which then puts 100% of the load in the bolt and you will have a failure. Once they're OK at 50% they may do some more testing or simulation at other pretension levels but if the joint looks good they're done and they target 75%. If they need to sharpen their pencil due to some issue they're seeing in testing or FEA they will pull out their bag of tricks which can include better tooling and controls on the assembly line to bring that +/-25% down to 15%. Your torque wrench will never replicate this and you should follow the unmodified OEM procedure if it states anything other than torque to XX ft-lbs. Also, throwing out a blanket 30% reduction if you lubricate is equally dangerous for many reasons. People have no idea how many things can vary your actual bolt pretension. The RPM at which you rotate your torque wrench up to the click/beep will change the pretension by a fair amount. Same goes for applying the torque to the bolt and holding the nut steady vs torqueing the nut.
Good video. They should provide lubricated torque specs for everything. I have used anti sieze on pretty much everything including lug nuts and never had a problem.
Thanks for the comment Bobby. It would be nice if they did, but I think with the number of variables present when the anti-seize is applied, they probably do not do it for liability reasons as well.
To be honest I haven't put too much thought into it...so I'll think out loud here for a minute... loctite is not a friction modifier, so technically you shouldn't have any risk of over tightening your bolts. Second, loctite basically fills up the gaps inside of your threaded bolt/nut coupling and this is what prevents loosening. That being said, you may get the added benefit of preventing water(salt water) from seeping inside and acting as an electrolyte for galvanic corrosion to occur. I can't guarantee it will prevent it, so if it still does occur, you might be double screwed when you try to use a penetrating spray to loosen rust because the loctite will prevent it from getting in the threads. That's a tough call!
Also, to add to this conversation... I live in Canada so I typically change my wheels annually for the winter. I have no problem using dry fasteners as they typically do not seize in one season. I'm not sure what your experience is like because of your location.
Embrace Racing so on your personal cars you don't use anti sieze? And have no problems getting the lugs or other bolts off? Do they use salt where you are?
I’m dealing with a similar issue, but in a different application. I am pondering lubed vs unlubed torque value for keel bolts in a sailboat. So nice to see you replicate the approx 25-30% difference in clamping pressure that most bolt torque tables show for dry vs lube bolt torque values. I’m going to use about 25% less torque than my sailboat mfg suggested dry torque value and use anti seize. My reason for this is twofold: first the bolt/nut are stainless steel (which is prone to galling), and second, I want to get the clamping pressure values for all 12 bolts as close as possible. Again, thanks for posting this. Very helpful.
There's vehicles in my driveway that have had anti seize on the lug threads longer than I've been alive, never an issue and they always come right off with no fuss. Lately I've been trying out bearing grease on the threads since it's nowhere near as messy and have been happy with that as well.
@@EmbraceMaking Use a 1/2" drive ratchet on the smaller cars to tighten them down until I can't put any more force on them if I don't have a torque wrench handy, which winds up being around 70-80 foot pounds when I check them with a torque wrench. On the bigger cars and trucks I usually back them off about 10 foot pounds using a torque wrench with thread lubricant, since there is often some dirt and debris mixed in on the threads I don't worry about it too much. For what it's worth, I try not to put anti seize on the conical taper seat of the lug/wheel.
Very informative, good explanation. And you addressed the question I was asking myself, why dont we just reduce the torque specs by say 30%. I live in a rust belt area, rusted lug nuts are not pleasant to deal with. (Especially if your changing a tire and dont have an impact on the side of the road). I think reducing torque specs by say 30% should be explored. At any rate has anyone had a lug nut problem that they contribute to using anti size? I have been using it for 30 years with out a problem. But maybe I use a lower torque wrench setting?
Yes I was a firm believer in using antisize for years but had to give it up due to the fact that most people over tighten to begin with, but have also noticed that the factory will put something that looks like gear oil on the hub pilot and studds so you can get the wheels off that tuff first time, I think that people would live where corrosion is a problem must find a way, one outfit I worked for simply used the small air hose on the big impact to install, and it worked, but left me wondering.
I use anti seize on all bolts and nuts, except on lug nuts. My honda manual does not mention it to put anything on lug nuts but in most of the other places, yes. Good video man
Direct quote from the directions for use of Permatex Anti-Seize Lubricant: "WARNING: Not for use on wheel lug nut or stud applications." (drops microphone)
Stay in automotive long enough and you'll be amazed at how much nonsense the lawyers have injected into it ...... It's why most shop "brake jobs" these days involve replacing calipers that are fine when pads are replaced. Ask the mechanics involved how they actually do their own brakes at home !
I've been working on vehicles for over 45 years. I always applied anti-sieze to wheel lugs. I have never had a wheel come loose or fall off. I have never broken a wheel stud either. Lately, I have stopped using anti-sieze on wheel studs and now only use a light layer of wheel bearing grease.I still get the same results using grease over anti-sieze. I use anti-sieze on parts that are exposed to heat, such as exhaust manifolds and exhaust systems. Wheels studs do not get hot. Maybe a little warm, but not hot.
I think this was a very informative and educational video for noobs (like me) and more informed viewers. I just had this problem and it took three days and a multitude of various tools to try and remove a stripped lug nut from my fiance's car. We were halfway into a trip and couldn't get the tire off to put a donut on. She often visits her family in the country and the dirt/debris that kicks up is terrible. We don't have an impact gun, all our tire work is done by hand with very rare exceptions. I broke my four way folding multi-size tire iron trying to pry this damn thing loose. That being said, I think I'll still use anti-seize, but take care not to over torque it. I also check the air regularly and will also check the lug nuts as well. I am conflicted on this now and will have to do more research because it's always such a nightmare to get the lug not off. Plus, most of the tire irons, etc, that we have used are technically the right size, but still not quite snug or grip well. It ends up trying to turn with a few degrees of play and strips the nut. Thank you again though and if I you find a solution to both, please link to this video!
Update: I got a great torque wrench and the specs on new bolts for my car. I adjusted the torque down 30% from spec since I'm using seize lube. I'm also checking the bolts once a week for chance in hold to be safe. I've had good luck with seize lube before, but from an ignorant stand point. We'll see how this goes, I feel a lot better about it.
@@something164 so far so good. The upside to this discussion is that I never thought about torque, shearing, & bad bolt application. It's made me more conscientious and probably headed off a serious safety issue. Plus, now we keep 48" torque wrenches in each car, making it easier to change the tires but also prevents bolts stripping/bending. This video was a force multiplier for knowledge!
Why didn’t you tighten the nut on the machine with anti-seize to the 5500 psi reading then see what torque you had tightened it to? That wet torque rating would show you the percentage of the dry torque rating and you could use that factor to apply the correct wet torque.
Great video. Ideally, the smart engineers would overdesign the stud and wheels such that if anti-seize were used and dry-torque specs maintained, all components involved could take the increased load...at least, I would hope so!
My intuition was as your conclusion but very glad to have seen your video analysis confirming this. Thanks. OK, tyre shops do hundreds of bolts with some different conclusion but individuals who know their cars can keep in mind your analysis. Imformative. 🙏
geat video .. at 76 years old I have always copa greased my wheel nuts / studs .. and almost never used a torque wrench .. never up to now had a wheel say bye bye.
I have been coating lug bolts, studs, wire wheel splines, hubcentric wheel/hub contact points, and valve stem threads with anti-sieze for going on 50 years. Works perfectly. Never had a lug loosen or become significantly overtorqued. I live in the northeast where the powers that be just love to use dry and liquid salt on the roads, before, during, and after a snow storm. I use the never-sieze sparingly. A very light dry coat that colors the rust a silvery gray is more than sufficient. I have a background in the automotive repair business.
Hi there, I'm up in Canada and I know all about salt on the roads. Everyone is going to have a difference experience, but I hope what people can take away from this video is that there is a very precise science behind bolted joints. Variations in frictions can result in large changes in pre-load. Thanks for watching!
Whatever Ft-Lbs you are trying to torque to, just multiply it by 0.7 and you will get the Ft-Lbs you should actually set the torque wrench to. For example 44ft-lbs X 0.7 = 30.8ft-lbs Multiplying by 0.7 is the same exact thing as reducing by 30% Those of you in the rust belt and cold areas with salted roads can thank me later! It's extreamly easy formula to follow. My lugs are 80-120 Ft-Lbs according to Chrysler torque spec on my vehicle. I normally shoot for 100 Ft-Lbs and that means I dial in 70 Ft-Lbs if I use Nickel-Graph/Copper/Silver/Blend Anti-Seize.
Good tip. I suppose this wouldn't work if your nuts and bolts aren't already corroded. If they are rusty, putting anti-seize on them would probably even it out.
Hello from germany. If the threads are in good condition I mount them dry, if they are rusty I clean them with a wire brush and give them one or two drops of oil. But I know that lots of oldtimer and 4x4 guys are using copper grease on the wheel nuts/bolts, and never heard that someone had an issue with that. In my opinion it might be o.k. to use a very little bit (!) of copper grease and reduce the torque about lets say 10 nm.
I`d like to add that I have a copper grease tin from Granville UK, and it is written and also pictured on the tin that you can use it for wheel nuts and bolts. The use for wheel nuts is also shown on the tin of Würth CU 800 copper paste.
Cool. I use both a micrometer torque wrench (old Proto half inch) and a hf digital torque adapter. I can check torque wrench accuracy and calibrate if needed with torque adapter set to peak trace. Also, after doing 2 passes using torque wrench on lug nuts I sometimes will use digital adapter between torque wrench (set to peak trace) and lug nuts and go around again to verify accuracy. I can get all 20 nuts (at 76 ft lbs dry) on my wheels to within 2 ft lbs of each other.
This would explain why my vehicle owner manual says not to use anti seize on the spark plugs. As far as rusty lug nuts, to get them off I would use wd40 or pb blaster and then use the power of leverage with an extension on my breaker bar. If it's that tough to get off you probably have bigger issues that need to be dealt with.
John 33 most people don’t carry around an extension or leverage bar when they get a flat tyre though, that’s fine at home but in general people rely on the kit that comes with the car.
I’m here because I had to change a flat tyre at the side of the road last night and my wheel bolts were so difficult to remove I had to kick the hell out of my wheel wrench to get them loose and even after that still struggled turning them all the way out, luckily they came off in the end but I would have been pretty screwed if not. now I’m considering using anti seize Incase it happens again.
Embrace Racing think I’ll just add a small amount and then re check them, hopefully will be all good. I also recommend anyone who doesn’t have a spare tyre to buy one because there’s no way one of those tyre sealant repair kits would have gotten me home.
You don't want antisieze or grease on 2-piece lugnuts like used on the super duty and heavy duty trucks with hub-pilot wheels. They are machined for minimal friction between the nut and washer, and for the washer to not turn against the wheel. Any lubricant on the washer face will allow it to spin against the wheel, which will gouge into aluminium wheels. But with stud-pilot or BUDD truck wheels, there is no such thing as too much antisieze.
As good as this information is when putting on lug nuts in winter climates with road salt usage a dry torqued bolt will rust in place and end with broken studs. So you torque bolts approximately 10% less to keep from overloading the studs. Sometimes there is NO good answer and in a world where the majority of bolts are NOT torqued with a torque wrench it is anyone's guess as to the actual torque anyway.
Wong yielding a bolt only decreases the thread pitch (making the bolt out of dimension) but does work harden the fastener you must approach the UTS of the bolt to metallurgically damage it. Under pre-load lead to fatigue not over-preloading.
If you were to instead observe the load gauge to arrive at the desired bolt tension (e.g. 5.5K psi preload = 60% elongation or stretch), why should it make a difference as to how much torque was applied to the fastener? Would dirty dry threads result in more accurate fastener tightness? Creating the desired bolt tension or stretch is the objective, yes? What am I missing? As I mentioned, dry threads add rotation friction which must be overcome to apply the proper load to the assembly. A lubricated thread should reduce that dry friction variable and minimize the rotational friction to arrive at the correct bolt tension regardless of the torque needed for that to happen. This is the reason why measuring actual bolt stretch is a better method to arrive at the desired bolt stretch. However, not all threaded fasteners can be measured end-to-end. Lacking that capability, try torquing clean, lubed threads at 70-75% of the specified spec (~33 ft.lbs). That should get you in the same preload ballpark as a dry lug nut tightened at 44 ft. lbs. for 5.5K psi preload.
Forget the anti seize, just use a bit of axel grease. Use a half inch drive ratchet, torque it up using 3 progressive steps with the final being a very solid push/pull, and youre good. Done thousands of lug nuts this way without problem. Every broken lug bolt ive seen, except two have been from trying to remove when seized dry. The other two cases were caused by loosened nuts that were dry. I suspect their undertorque caused by thread friction whereby the nuts mistakenly appeared torqued but the torque was fooled by the rust of the lug and nut threads since I once caught a friend falling into that trap.
I live in the rust belt but never had rust as a problem with lug nuts. A tiny bit of surface rust here or there, nothing to worry about. Lubing a crucial safety component like a lug nut sounds insane.
It's a torque vs tension problem it's hard to determine the right to work with a rusted bolt or at lubricated Bolt torque specs are rated on dry Clean bolts what you're really looking for is the proper tension
The minor thread diameter of a 3/8-16 bolt is .297". This means the bolt's cross-sectional area is not .0775 sq. in....it is .0693 sq. in. So, the stress on the bolt is actually greater than 71,000 and 106,000psi. In fact, the stress on the lubricated bolt is very close to its yield strength. One more reason to use given torque values on dry, clean threads.
@@EmbraceMaking Actually, you were right the first time. It's Larry who made the mistake. Yes, a 3/8" 16 has a minor diameter of 0.2938" (not quite 0.297) which gives a minor diameter area of 0.0678 in^2 (not quite 0.0693), but that is the wrong area to use for stress. The tensile area of a bolt is not the one corresponding to its minor diameter. Remember - the threads carry tension too - so the effective cross section (the tensile stress area) is in between the minor and major diameters. It can be calculated (you can easily find the equations) or read from a table. Looking at a table, the tensile stress area of a 3/8"-16 is 0.0775 in^2 - just as in the video.
hey whats up. I have a co-worker that goes crazy with this anti-seize stuff. I like this video cause it was super interesting. rather than just putting a dap, he covers the whole thing with anti-seize. now in your video you said that over time if you keep using anti the stud or the bolt will loose tension and it wont hold as well. well, I work at a shop that cars come back all the time for tires. or I see that the car previously had anti already on it. well bottom line I have two questions. 1. what can happen if you put too much anti-seize? 2. if you put too much, over time can your lug nut slowly loosen and fall off? video was awesome please get back at me.
Thanks for the comment! Anti-seize will change the friction as I mentioned in the video which will increase pre-load (bolt tension) for a given amount of torque. As you can see, it's not difficult to change it enough to exceed the yield strength of the material and cause total loss of elasticity in the bolt. That being said, it's very difficult to quantify how much anti-seize is considered "too much," OR if any amount at all is acceptable. That would be something that would have to be measured experimentally I would imagine. So unless your co-worker plans on doing the experiment and then applying anti-seize with a syringe, I would recommend that he doesn't use it on wheel studs unless the manufacturer recommends it (and can provide a wet torque rating). So to answer number one and two at the same time, any amount of anti-seize has the potential to cause the wheel nut to back off and fall off if torqued to the dry torque spec of the bolt (stud). It can stretch the bolt and you will have zero clamping force potentially. Let me know if that makes sense to you :) Thanks for watching!
Yes, someone else brought that up... I could have been more specific to say that it is a 30% increase in the load with respect to the yield. It would be 50% increase if I was referencing the previous load as you stated.
Great info. I’m still going to put anti seize on my studs because they’re rusty so it should offset the added friction of the rust and jacked up lugs 🤣
Good information and presentation. I gotta say though seems like modern culture, especially in America has become fearful, and want to put a rule on EVERYTHING. I can understand how this is crucial information in the world of certain racing and aviation applications. As a shade tree mechanic of 50 years I will continue to wire brush threads, apply a thin film of oil, and snug things up. The biggest mistake I see people make are not cleaning parts thoroughly, especially rusty brakes, and cranking things down, way to tight, not good for anything, especially rotors. The argument should be made that just as anti sieze can result in a bad torque reading, so can a rusty wheel stud/nut, as that will create a lesser tight bolt, and inconsistencies between boIts, I venture to say, in real life, rusty instalations account for more problems. Really, when was the last time you heard of someone's wheel coming off, excluding those installed by a Just Tires mechanic? Lol 😆
Thanks for the comment! It's not necessarily about putting a rule on everything (I'm not a big fan of that 'movement') but more about good technical practice. Actually, wheels come off of vehicles on a pretty regular basis, they just usually don't make the news unless it is a transport truck. In this article from 2019: www.caasco.com/blog/Automotive/dont-let-the-wheels-come-off-how-to-prevent-wheel-separation it shows that in a four year period in the province of Ontario, Canada alone, there were 389 reported cases of wheels separating from light (passenger) vehicles and 29% resulted in a collision. That obviously doesn't account for all of the unreported ones as well. I know as a percentage of all of the vehicles on the road in the province it isn't a huge number, but it's still significant enough that someone (multiple people) have probably been killed or badly injured as a result. I would say it's worth letting people know what the recommended practice is
@@EmbraceMaking You make good points, I shouldn't dispute your effort, knowledge is power, best shared with everyone, keep up the good work. I do think though, you are touching on a very specific technical point, nothing wrong with that. I would venture a guess that the problem with wheels coming off on Monday has more to do with how much they drank on Sunday, and a general problem with lazy, carelessness. Also wheels are not standard in the ways they are attached, too many variants and complex spacers, binding nuts, et cetera, that complicates things. I've always appreciated the simplicity of a black steel, fleet style wheel and the lug nuts that seat into the nice beveled holes, spun in place with a 4 way lug wrench. Probably covered with a dog dish hubcap. When you start fiddling with simplicity, problems arise. As a side note I took my 2000 Town Car to Just Tires in Culver City, I paid 700 bucks for top of the line Goodyears, they offered me half off on a wheel alignment, I played the sucker, I should have gone to Bagge, my usual, the steering wheel was crooked and it pulled to one side. Went back for the fix, same problem. Said it was within specs. Took it to Bagge and Sons. The first thing the mechanic says is all the bolts are loose! In the end they did a beautiful alignment, car tracks perfectly, wheel is straight. The Just Tires kid knowingly sent me down the road with control arms ready to pop, this is stuff that goes on. I've driven more than a million miles in LA, taxis, Limos, I have seen some crazy stuff, one time I did see a wheel coming in my direction, it was a bigass, like off the back of a Vette, 10 Fwy and Crenshaw, from the oncoming lane, that was scary, it was bouncing like a ball, thirty feet in the air, went by me 100 ft away, I never did hear a crash. Sorry to ramble, this California lock down leaves me lots of time to blue face. Lol.
@@kccodex8931 His point here is moot though. Tires coming off doesn't equal tires coming off due to lubrication applied. Anecdotally, I have never seen anyone's tire come off that I have put on or have seen put on. With hundreds of variations in tire size, bearing size, levels of lubrication including anti-sieze, and levels of rust. And in many applications up to and including racing conditions and towing conditions. All torqued by hand with a fourway and no torque wrench. If a tire comes off then anti-seize didn't cause it. It is possible that it makes other factors more dangerous, but it isn't inherently dangerous itself. In shops that only use impact tools I would say not to use it without proper torque specs, but if they were listed for wet lug nut applications they could easily use it with them as well. His experiment is flawed here so his numbers are exaggerated at best.
So people its your choice what you want to do after watching video n reading comments, it seems both are OK as long as you know how to use antiseeze n how much to tighten-20-30% less people are saying, but what if some one else tighten lug nuts n not you n might use more? Both have ups n downs Also i am going to get a torque wrench, didnt know i should use one on lug nuts until recently
Hi Michael, yes, if you know what you're doing its probably okay, but that was the point I was trying to make. Most people don't reduce the torque when using anti-seize so that is why manufacturers recommend dry assembly.
i agree 100% with Rod Pile, I have been using anti-seize for 35 years on everything i assemble and never had one failure as a result of using it, where we live here in canada if you do not use it the bolts and nuts rust on so bad as well as wheels, drums, rotors etc that you have to use it, do not agree with these people who say to not use it, I think it must be from people who never get there hands dirty and sit in an office
I can't think of a single car using a nut and bolt, as done in the test, to attach wheels. The taper or spherical seat provides more friction than a flat bolt face and washer. I use anti-seize on wheel studs and have for over 50 years-ever since I snapped off a few wheel studs and made a lot of work for myself.
The nut and bolt is clearly just for demonstration purposes to get the point across. The numbers are also for demonstration purposes. I think that is pretty clear... I understand people have done things a certain way for many years without issue. I'm not saying that if you use anti-seize your wheel will fall off tomorrow. The point being made is that it is not intended for the application as any automotive engineer will tell you, and it increases the likelihood of something happening, not guarantees it. Even the other day I purchased a new set of wheels for my car... in the instruction booklet that comes with each wheel it explicitly states not to use anti-seize on the studs. This is widely accepted as best practice.
@@EmbraceMaking Lawyers are the reason for the no anti-seize warning. Just like the warning not to remove spark plugs from a hot engine. As an automotive engineer I can tell you anti-seize works well when used properly. Your experiment was not representative of an actual application or circumstance and means nothing as far as the issue of anti-seize goes. Why not update your experiment using an actual wheel and lug nuts?
@@chash7335 If the lug nuts and anti-seize combination were fail proof as you are suggesting, there would be no need for lawyers to get involved. The fact that user manuals and documentation exist showing that anti-seize is not recommend to be used on lug nuts would suggest that there is some level of risk involved. Just because you've done something for 50 years one way without issue doesn't mean that someone else won't have a problem. I can smoke for 50 years and not die of lung cancer but we all know smoking can cause lung cancer. I'm also an automotive engineer and I can tell you that the geometry of a conical seat or ball seat lug nut does not make the nut exempt from the effects of lubricant on the threads. The friction produced by the thread interface contributes to the overall friction the nut experiences as part of the equation I provided in the video. Reducing the friction increases the pre-load and you could over torque and stretch the bolt rendering it useless. This is just as bad as a under torqued lug nut. This is why dry and wet torque ratings exist... lug nuts are nuts with a different shape, it still applies to them. Their shape is used to aid in centering the stud within the bore such that mechanical loosening of the nut doesn't happen with an eccentric motion acting on the nut. This certainly helps prevent loosening but as I said, if you stretch the bolt it no longer acts to compress the bolted joint and it will loosen. I didn't run the demonstration with an actual lug nut because I didn't have a matching conical or ball seat surface to clamp down onto in the pre load measuring device. I would have had to get a piece machined for no good reason. It was a simple demonstration showing the relationship between torque, friction and resulting preload whose concept applies to lug nuts also.
Great info! What a fun surprise it was to find this video. I'm freaking with semi truck sis and lug nuts and was curious about anti seize usage. So this was very helpful. What about doing something similar on using loctite? Keep up the great work. And thanks for sharing the knowledge.
I use anti seize on my lugs. I torque till the lug wrench flexes. I have done this on like 30+ cars and trucks for the last 35yrs. Never had a wheel come loose or a stud break(with exception of a huge pot hole going too fast on a backroad.) Sometimes you can over think things.
Would engine grease on the wheel bolt provide the same effect? I would imagine that anti-seize is different in its chemical composition. Are you saying that we should dry torque bolts? The manufacturer does not specify whether wet or dry.
+dynaweave Engine grease would definitely provide a similar effect. It will reduce friction and result in more preload for the same torque. If the documentation for your vehicle doesn't specify, it would be safe to assume that it is a dry torque spec (for wheels). I've never personally seen a manufacturer specify lubrication/anti-seize for wheel studs.
M12x1.5 nuts. Very tiny bit of silicone grease along each stud. 80% of manufacturer specified torque. Have no problem with nuts, even after drifting or 1000 mile highway trip. No rust on studs, in UK where rust is eating every car away.
This becomes a much bigger issue on wheels that are lug centric. Hub centric wheels transfer the weight of the wheel mostly from the hub to the wheel. Not from the studs to wheel, as a stud centric wheel does. Wheel studs on a stud centric setup do double duty (clamping & support of the vehicle wieght), and is part of why most modern production cars use hub centrist wheels. It prevents the greater rate of wheel stud failures of the old stud centric wheels. Some after market wheels are stud centric to increase the number of vehicles they can be used on without a redesign, and is important to keep in mind. Due to heavily salted roads for 6 to 8 months my maintenance schedule, and parts needing to be replaced is much higher then an environment without salt. So I replace my wheel studs far more often. Even in a less forgiving environment, wheel studs are only designed to be torqued a certain amount of times before losing thier ability to strech. It's why they should be replaced everytime you get new tires. Specialy if the shop uses impact guns & torque sticks. In a worse case, just impact guns. I use just a smige of anti-seeze (very technical term lol) inside of the lug nut. This keeps the the nut from becoming one with the stud, and prevents the anti-seeze from getting on the lug face. I will also use a q-tip to smear the none contact area of the wheel studs with a very thin film of axle grease to significantly slow down the rusting of that portion of the stud. This way the dam lug nut can be removed after 3 of the 6 months of (au)salted hell for a tire rotation, and the studs make it through winter. The studs get cleaned with break cleaner, and redone reinstalling the wheels. Use of a torque wrench is important. Due to the salt I replace my studs every year. On the fronts this is done by default when replacing the rotor. On my drum rears I have measured the stud length brand new, and again after one winter (2 tire rotations), spring & summer (another 2 tire rotatiins). They were well under the acceptable amount of stud strech. It's the best way to determine if the studs have been over torqued (by anyone), and ruined your studs or if they have just reached the end of thier service life.
And if the stud and nuts a bit rust you also will not get a good tork on the nut I am 54 years old and have used anti seize on lug nuts. And never wasted my money on the lug tork bars and to this day never had a problem. Exe a loos wheel a broken stud and I am not saying anything you are saying is WROUNG I loved the info verry professional info. I work on tralor and trucks alot of rusty nuts
On the other hand, if your bolts are rusty, you will have too little preload. I live in the rust belt, and use a little anti-seize on the bolts and on the mating surface of the wheels and have never had an issue. I wish auto manufacturers would use it on every nut and bolt on the car. Whenever I have the opportunity, I undo bolts and nuts, put anti-seize on the thread and torque them back again. I also use anti-corrosion spray in any electric connector I can.
Excellent information, thanks and your explanation/presentation could not have been better. As an FYI and like others who have commented, I have used anti-seize on lugs for years with no apparent long-term illeffects. I never used a torque wrench because I've done this enough times to know what 75lbs of foot-force feels like. I will say that I likely let up a bit because of the lubrication torque ease. My bigger worry is too much torque causing rotor warpage. As for becoming loose, that will usually become apparent with wheel wobble at high speeds (alignment-like need). Regardless of my experience, I learned a lot from your video that will make me conscious moving forward. Well done and thanks.
Thanks for this info. I just installed rear shocks and used anti seize. I realized something was wrong because it seemed like I was never reaching the torque of 56 ft pounds I needed. It just seemed way too much wrenching to get there. I'm going to toot those bolts and get new ones on there tomorrow... dry.
A good way to prevent fasteners from seizing is to use a product used in motor racing called "Copper Ease" two companies who stock it are Screwfix and Haifords to prevent seizure of nuts. it works wonders
Same here. I was only wondering if it is a good idea because the lug bolts on my car can be impossible with the wrench that came with the car. If you ever had a difficult time with a car that has aluminum wheels you will know what I mean. I keep a breaker bar and socket in the trunk of my car and even then the lug bolts seem too tight at times. I still have the wrench that came with the car but it is really somewhat undersized for what it was intended for. It is not just a problem with my car but many of them. It is feels like whoever chose to include that wrench never had to change a tire before. I only ever find myself taking the wheel off the car to inspect the brakes. I am glad it is rare that I ever have to take them off the car.
This is fine and all....but how many garages are there around the country that never use a torque wrench period...they just use a air ratchet that ends up over torquing the lugs well beyond what you would get with a lubricated pre-load.
I really don't see the problem here? Just use LESS torque than before. Also, keep in mind that those torque recommendations cooked up by the auto mfgs. are primarily for ease of assembly rather than repair work. Even a DRY bolt/nut will require a DIFFERENT torque rating upon its re-use when repairing. The simple putting on a nut, and then taking it off will CHANGE the threads enough to show a different torque requirement.
It makes more sense why the techs would torque dry bolts and put a mark 30 degrees. Then apply anti seize and tighten to their mark. Dont over torque a bolt ever when possible. Some of the bolts we install are in the thousands of dollars range. Torqued to several thousand ft lbs. Breaking or stretching one isn't an option
Excellent Video. Well researched and presented. As a woman in the automotive chemical business for over 30 years I have also heard the pros and cons on the use of Anti-seize in wheel and lug nut applications. I have never seen or heard the effects of using non-specified product more clearly stated and demonstrated. No matter what one's opinion, everything changes when a wheel comes off. Everyone wants something to make their job tasks easier to perform. there is no 'one size' fits all. The wisdom of following the manufacturer specification cannot be stressed enough. How do I receive you permission to share this in my Tech School training sessions?
@@EmbraceMaking I'm getting that warm fuzzy feeling, two people, educated people, coming together to spread valuable information to others. Yaaaaayyyy!
So reduce the torque spec for threaded fasteners when you use anti-seize. It's simple. "When using anti-seize, you should reduce the torque value by 25-30%. This is because anti-seize acts as a lubricant, which reduces the amount of torque needed to achieve the desired clamping force. This is sometimes called a torque multiplier. If you don't reduce the torque value, you could strip the threads or stretch the bolt. The exact amount of torque reduction depends on the material, so you should check the manufacturer's specifications if you're unsure. For example, when using anti-seize on spark plugs, the torque value can change by up to 20%, which could increase the risk of thread breakage or metal shell stretching."
Anti-seize is critical for steel, titanium, or SS fasteners installed in aluminum. They will seize otherwise, and cause galling when removed or installed. For steel fasteners installed in steel or iron, only light oil is needed. Use anti-seize for it's intended purpose.
Nice video but you only looked at half of the process. Torque verse clamping changes after nut and bolt are tighened due to the fiction change. About 40 yrs. ago a Bowman fastner rep put on a similar demo. If you looked at the bolt and nut under a microscope there are mountain peaks from machining. After the first time you torque it down you have also burnished the peaks down. Now you have more surface area which means more fiction which results in the same torque applied when new will yield less clamping force after first use. You can test this on you buddy's set up. Also go ahead when making this test after you checked a new bolt and nut and take it apart and reinstall the nut on the same side (don’t flip the nut over) and recheck reading, now flip the nut over and retorque and check it again and you will be back close to where you were when everything was new because you are using the other side of the threads. You will lose a little clamping force because of the burnishing of the bolt, but the nut is always softer than the bolt so by flipping the nut you pretty much have a new nut. Then you can go ahead and apply anti- seize and see what you get. Back to the Bowman rep. His advice was to use anti-seize. I have done this for 40 yrs. With no problems. My only question has been did the factory engineers come up with there torque for a new bolt or one that is used (tightened at lest once) or a used bolt. I think for a new one because if you buy a new stud and lug new you torque to specs.
Excellent video! I specifically sought this topic out before putting anti seize on my wheel studs. Sure glad I did!! I REALLY learned something interesting and important from your video. Thanks for the clarification.
Good information but not like for like when compared to wheel studs. I would be interested in seeing what the difference in stretch in a wheel stud because it has the large surface area in the taper that should create most of the friction. Anti-seize should be avoided for that area and should only be on the threads.
Great to bring this to attention, but there are problems with leaving lug nuts dry. In warm climates where vehicles are not subject to road salt, keeping lug nut free of anti-seize would be good advice. However, those of us to drive through salty slush have a corrosion issue. In addition to problems with steel rims, aluminum allow rims bathed in road salt experience galvanic corrosion, the effect of which is far worse than for steel rims. Removing corroded nuts can cause over torquing while removing. I have seen rusted nuts that have required lengthy cheater bars. This can cause over stressing and thread damage. With aluminum rims, even if the lug nuts are badly corroded, the white corrosion product actually adheres the aluminum rim to its seating surface which is steel. I have had to pound on aluminum rims with considerable impact to break the bond of corrosion. This must be done with care not to damage the rim, such as using a heavy wooden block as the striking implement, or placing a wood block as a pad and striking the pad with a hammer. Once removed, the rim's own seating surface and steel surface on the vehicle must be carefully cleaned. This can take a lou of personal time, or shop labor. A preventative measure is to smear a thin layer of grease over the mating surfaces. Even in salt free climates, repeat cycling of tire changes over the life of a vehicle can damage threads. Lubrication can prevent thread damage. It seals salty water to prevent corrosion. Despite the advice given, in my road salt laden area, I find it necessary to lubricate lug nuts. I find that anti-seize compounds actually dry out and make future removal difficult. A good water resistant grease such as fifth wheel grease works for me. I have never had a wheel loosen off, nor have I had a stud damaged. Lugs and nuts have a good safety factor engineered in, so can stand some extra effective torque. Everyone else must make their own choice.
In Wisconsin I bought a new car and parked in a heated garage all winter. In the spring, I could not get the aluminum rims off, kicking, hitting with a rubber mallet, etc. I even created a small dent when kicking backwards and having bad aim. It took a wooden board and a friend hitting it with a sledge hammer to finally free them. I leaned two things--use anti-seize on the bolts and mating surface and don't park in a heated garage. Things don't corrode which when it's cold out. But when you bring a salty car into the warmth, and let the snow melts, things corrode very quickly.
What do we about , the nuts that will rust on . Which I have had happen to me . On my Snowmobile Trailer The Lug Nuts are out in the open.The snow gets on them , water and dirt. Guess what , after being on the Trailer for years. Now you have a flat , on the highway. And I could not get the Lug Nut off .Now multiple that by 5- Lug Nuts . And you got yourself, a big problem.
Thanks for the comment. I'm not suggesting that seized nuts aren't a problem... because that situation is unfortunate. I'm just bringing attention to the fact that improper use of anti-seize can be dangerous. If you decide to use some anti-seize then best practice suggests that you should modify your torque rating accordingly. Otherwise if your studs break and your wheel falls off... well then you don't have any chance of putting on a spare.
What about applying only a bit where the lug nut head meets the alloy, this should prevent "metal baking" and won't affect torque specs. Because as far as available info the threads don't "bake" but the outer parts. What do you think? Regards
The underside of the lug nut touching the cone seat of the wheel will most definitely affect the torque spec. Check the graph on this page... www.boltscience.com/pages/nutorbolttightening.htm I would suggest following the manufacturer's spec and just go clean and dry. I live in Canada and we use a ton of salt on our roads in the winter and have not come across a completely seized lug nut yet. I change my wheels out for winter tires every year and by removing the lugs annually it seems to be enough to prevent them from seizing.
Embrace Racing thanks for the reply. Definitely right torque specs are ftw. Sometimes air guns in shops become inaccurate and they just exaggerate probably (not always) unintentionally. Regards!
i dont find lug nuts get to corroded.. but the mating surface between the rim and rotor/hub always gets some antiseize/copper coat/ grease when possible ive seen rims stuck to the car and take 6 ft pry bars with full size sledge hammers to remove them i use antiseize on everything except wheel lugs unless it gets thread locker typically engine related things and anything where the bolt isnt stationary but spins like a drive shaft gets thread lock
not sure what you mean by spigot, but around where the lug nuts come through the rotor on the flat mounting area there that the rim touches... obviously not on the friction/braking surface
Thanks Andrew, I would not recommend that. You are lubricated the clamping faces where the wheel touches the face of the rotor. The lug nuts clamp the wheel to the surface and that clamping force along with the coefficient of friction is what keeps the wheels in place. The spigot is the little round lip that protrudes through the center of your rotor and locates the wheel dead center on the hub. This is where I find most wheels seize. I usually apply a little anti-seize there, especially before the winter and this makes it easy to remove the wheels in the spring and will not affect the clamping.
I live in Ontario and it's a very similar situation, especially with all of the road salt used. At the end of the day I'd rather have to use a little extra effort to get my lug nuts off, than have them fall off lol.
Being a tire technician. Commercial tire technician I see this stuff all the time being used and the old people I have to argue with everyday not to use it will not listen. Most of the time it worsens the situation to the point they / apply it and add it to the center of the Hub. Most people have aluminum rims which are bolted up against Steel. There's two metals that don't like each other in the first place. Then you add another medal. Never sees his copper grade. All it does is f things up it turns into a clay powder and digs into the aluminum. And I can not in some cases get a proper torque. In that case I bring out penetrating oil and a rag and charge people to remove it.
Been using copper anti-seize on all my vehicles and the vehicles I've worked on for other people for the last decade and haven't had a problem with it yet.
I am only wondering about this because the bolts on my Volkswagen can get very difficult to undo. I know that this is a problem with aluminum and similar wheels. I once had a '95 LeBaron with aluminum wheels and but I also had those horrible lug nuts with the thin cap on that car. The cap on those miserable things would eventually come loose and cause problems trying to get it off. I don't know if Chrysler still uses those awful lug nuts but they are sometimes hard enough to remove even when that metal cap on them does not get messed up. My Volkswagen does not have that problem because they did not put those stupid thin metal caps on them. Instead they left them a plain bolt head and there are plastic plugs that hide them. When lug nuts become stubborn like that the wrench that came with your car spare tire and jack will just make it seem practically impossible to remove the lug nuts. You will feel helpless if you didn't bring a breaker bar with the correct impact socket for your car.
It will still act as a spring. The problem will be the next time. Torque to yield is common practice, but then the screws shall never be re-used. Which is not the case for wheel screws.
Well in the case of my wheel studs and nuts which are made of titanium the manufacture requires you to use anti-seize and even provides a small tube of it to use on his product and also states to torque to manufacturers specs I guess what I’m truly saying is stick to what the manufacturer says to do unless you modify in one way shape or form
Anti seize with reduced manufacturer's recommended torque specs by 30%. Perfect. 30% reduction is the right amount and torque needs to be done using an accurate torque wrench, not just a guess. The 30% comes from Ajax fastener hand book for heavily lubricated threads.
I track my car every month, so the wheels comes off twice a month to change between street tyres and track tyres. I've been told to add anti seize to protect the studs from the constant wheel changes. I've done a bit of internet searches and it seem like a 50/50 split between the community about this. What are your thoughts on this?
+Wrinkledlemon This is a bit of a tough one... mainly because constant tightening and loosening of a bolt/nut can change the surface finish of the thread interfaces. They will become "rougher" and the next time you put your lug nuts back on, there will be increased friction at the thread interface. Then what ends up happening is the same amount of dry torque results in less preload. Then you may run the risk of under-tightening. That being said, the engineers who designed your bolt pattern likely took this into account (I can't promise you that, but I would bet that something like lug nuts have been looked at in extensive detail over many years). I'd wager a guess that there is enough of a "preload factor" (optimal designed preload on a new set of lug studs divided by the minimum required preload to hold your wheel on) that as preload diminishes with each subsequent installation of your wheels, there will always be enough to hold your wheels on. This is only a hunch on my behalf but it's a good question. The people who told you to do this, what exactly did they say the anti-seize is protecting the studs/nuts from?
+Embrace Racing I've been told that it helps "minimise the damage from taking on and off all the time." I'm assuming the 'damage' is the roughening of the thread surface as you mentioned. I recently had a stud get cross threaded as I was taking the nut off and had to replace that stud. This was after about, 16 wheel swaps. I'm now hesitant on continuing with wheel swapping because of the wasted time and money to replace the damaged stud. I'd hoped anti seize would help prevent studs from breaking but the potential over tightening with anti seize as shown in your video has put a pause in my decision as well.
+Wrinkledlemon What do you use to install the lug nuts? Do you use an air gun to buzz them on? It's pretty difficult to cross thread if you do it by hand. I know it's more time consuming but like I said, very difficult to cross thread by hand...
+Wrinkledlemon Very strange that it was when it was being removed. Have you looked into ARP studs? If you're tracking and installing/uninstalling all of the time, maybe it would be a good idea to upgrade all of them. I'd give them a call and get their recommendation since they specialize in it. Let me know what they say!
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I work at a tire shop and we are required to apply anti-seize to all wheel studs when removing wheels. Keep into consideration that many people go years without removing their wheels which gives plenty of time for the lug nuts and studs to rust on and seize up making them difficult to remove, which we have to deal with often. We remove hundreds of wheels a week and have never had a customer's wheels loosen or fall off even after not having their tires serviced for years. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
Yes, I've always lube'd my wheel studs/ lugnuts before torquing them down and have never had a problem with them coming loose.
Disclaimer: I am not a certified mechanic and advise you to research what is best for your situation. Fuck it!
It's hilarious because the torque difference is like 10lb, your studs aren't going to fail if they are over torques by 10lb even 40lb.
What I have had happen is a roadside flat tire, I used the crappy tire iron that came with the car to take the wheel off.. 3/5 studs broke leaving me stranded. Never had a lubed stud fail on me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@adamtaylor876 This video literally showed a 2,750lb difference. Don't confuse torque with pretension.
Good engineering dictates: 1. Decide the necessary clamping force. 2. Pick a stud that when lubed with anti-sieze and torqued to X lb/ft will provide 100% of necessary clamping force at 50% of force necessary to destroy the stud. This allows for human error. But this means a bigger fastener , more $.
It’s a bit late in the day but I’ve anti seized wheel studs and bolts for 40 + years and never ever had a bolt break or loosen or a wheel fall off . On the counter side I have had wheel bolts break because they were seized in and simply either tore the threads off or twisted off the stud or made the bolt almost impossible to remove .
I know exactly which is better and I’m sticking to it thanks .
So glad I stumbled upon this vid. I’ve coated my lug studs for years (since we live in the rust belt) and ran into trouble for the first time tightening our 2023 Jeep GC L lug nuts to the very high but manual required spec of 130 foot pounds. Trying to reach that spec with permatex anti-seize on the stud and lug nuts actually caused two of our studs to rotate with an inability to reach the spec. I initially thought it was a manufacturer defect. Our local Jeep dealership had to replace the entire setup. To me, the higher the torque spec, the more damage can be done if using anti-seize. Thanks again for posting.
had a neighbor who hydrolocked his lug nuts, they came up tight, but it was because the antiseize was trapped in the nut preventing it from bottoming out. are your lug nuts open at the end?
@@gregdawson1909 yes. They are.
Excellent presentation and technically accurate. I used to work for GM in tire testing and everything you said is accurate. Well done!
Thank you!
Very informative and professional explanation of the phenomenon. It still leaves me with
the problem of what you would do on a cold dark night in the middle
of nowhere when you can't get the lug nuts loose because they have
rusted on. It seems that those smart people you referred to have come
up short or don't care about what may happen in the real world. Since
the lubricant you used is called ANTI seize I think that it would be
good practice for the engineers designing these systems to take the
likelihood of seizing nuts and bolts into their calculations and
provide a torque specification for users who want to avoid the
possibility of seizing into account.
Thanks Byon Bill! The engineers definitely take this into account. I can't say for certain, but from my own experience I think it is a choice of the lesser of two evils. Although bolts that have anti-seize and the correct torque applied should theoretically not loosen off during normal use, sometimes this happens. It can be due to vibration or micro movements relative to the two parts, eventually the lugs loosen. When no anti-seize is applied, the bolts may seize a little (as you experienced) and this may prevent them from backing off. Although this is an inconvenience, it is the lesser of two evils compared to your wheel lugs falling off while you drive. Another reason I can think of is that when people apply anti-seize, it is not always uniform, the same type, on just the threads vs the threads and the underside of the bolt/nut, etc. It introduces many more variables into the equation and the friction value may not be consistent each time. Whereas dry is, well, dry. Less things to take into account so it's easier to just supply a dry torque value. That's what I can think of off the top of my head. Thanks for watching!
Byon Bill it sounds like the scenario you came up with is from just using your impact gun to put on your wheel lug nuts and not setting your gun to the one setting and barely getting them tight. Your problem may start with the person who Services your wheels. You need to torque in the air with the brakes on your your vehicle. Over torquing or putting them on with an impact. Is the real problem. There is a solution though. If you ever grab a nut with your finger and tighten it as hard as you can just barely tap it with a hammer and you will see it will move. If you need to loosen a nut that's been impacted to put on. then it needs to be impacted to take it off. just smack the tire iron or socket with a hammer as you are trying to loosen it and it will come free.
Electric 12v impact wrench.
Do not impact lug nut when installing it. A lot of store use impact gun and they have massive torque. Overtighten and the rust is what give you problem. As long as you torque it to spec, wheels won't come off and the nuts won't rust stuck in there.
Embrace Racing. 🤔 I’ve been anti seizing my nuts since I’ve owned my own vehicles 16 years now (yes a millennial) on Over 12 different vehicles. I typically torque them to the same specs as recommended and never had a lug nut come loose. But they do come loose a lot easier when you want them to. The other alternative has been broken 1/2” ratchets, sockets, and the cheesy cheap breaker bars that are included from the factory would strip and or bend.
I own a Toyota and for decades now I always applied anti-seize and then applied 75 ft-lbs to the nut with the anti-seize on it. I'm now going to reduce the torque down to only 80% of the rated 75 ft-lbs, and torque the nuts up to only 60 ft-lbs just to make sure I don't over-tighten them. Thanks for this information.
Finally a definitive answer to this controversy instead of a tailgate mechanic telling us granpa always did it.
Thanks Richard!
I never discount the life experiences of anyone's Granpa. I weigh the information carefully. Just as I do from someone like this who demonstrates results with gauges. There are frequently outside factors that must be considered 🤔 This was a excellent presentation. Something else I've learned is that if you have a repetitive task to execute , find the old guy and the lazy guy to do the job, you can get good info that way, frequently the lazy guy will find the most efficient way to do it. Cuz he's lazy lol.
You probably dont care but if you are stoned like me during the covid times you can stream pretty much all the latest series on Instaflixxer. Been streaming with my girlfriend for the last days :)
@Deandre Tate Yup, have been using InstaFlixxer for months myself :D
Grandpa was probably right but you did listen.
Interesting. Ive been working in cars for over 50 years. When working on my own cars I have generally always used anti-seize on the lug nuts/bolts and have never had one problem in all that time. Also use it on any nut/bolt that I know will be needed to remove for future repairs such as the EGR valve I recently replaced. Just lucky I guess.
I feel the same way, but I got burned when someone else worked on it.,another interesting video is ALKITRONIC, where they switch from torque to angle.
I use some kind of anti seize or lube on almost everything. I hate seized and rusted fasteners. I've never had a problem doing it in 20 years. If it's something I have the wheels off of a lot I simply use some oil for my street vehicles anti seize it is.
I use lube all the time but maybe theres a caveat . Being a professional mechanic for 30 years and hobby mechanic before and after, one tends to gain a clear sense of torque required. Cant expect everyone to develop that same sense so i can understand why some manufactures and shops set specs and guidelines. Problem is, some torques are dry, some lubed. Why not lugs lubed? It gives much more accurate torque. Ive installed many critical parts on turbine engines as well as wing bolts and spark/igniter plugs that call up a thread lube. Many others dont but on aircraft its rare to be dealing with fasteners in a environment remotely as harsh as wheel lugs.
I feel like the pros of using anti-seize outweigh the cons. I use grease, torque to spec, and re-torque after the car's been driven a good 50 miles or so. They are built so over spec, they can handle it, and they aren't going to seize. And there's no way anti-seize is getting them tight enough to warp rotors. I have seen way, way more lugnuts snap during removal than during tightening. There's also the problem of less than perfect studs and or lugnuts decreasing the load on the hub and possibly loosening over time, (I saw this happen less than a year ago on a relatives car). Anti seize will help with this problem.
i always throw antisieze in between the rotor and hub and wheel and rotor. I accidentally usually get them on the threads of the studs and just tighten down as hard as it'll let me with a tire iron. Never had an issue lol
The dose makes the poison.....just food for thought.
Great video! This will come in handy at work. I run into this issue quite often. Been doing tires and suspensions over 20 yrs. I live in the Midwest and because of the weather, moisture, salting the roads in the winter oxidization and rust is guaranteed. This can make it a pain to remove wheels. It’s not uncommon for people to grease up their hubs, lug nuts and studs making it easier the next time you have to remove them. But I definitely don’t recommend it on studs or lug nuts. We actually have to remove it with brake cleaner when we come across it. It’s mandatory! Greasing the studs or the lug nuts and then torquing at factory specs can actually stretch the studs to the point where the nut threads no longer line up with the bolt threads. When this happens they’re a nightmare to get off and back on again. This also can cause a cross thread and the stud now has to be broken off and replaced. It’s caused by over torquing. Grease or anti-seize allows the bolt to turn well past its dry torque specification. By removing your wheels seasonally for a simple rotate or balance usually eliminates this issue anyway. The longer the wheels stay on the vehicle the more likely they wheel oxidize or rust on. So instead of greasing them up just remove them once in a while. Lol... It even says right on the box of anti-seize do not put on lug bolts or nuts. Wheel retention is extremely important. A little grease on the hub is fine but putting it on the studs or lug nuts can alter the clamping force. It’s definitely not recommended. Both the car manufacturer and TIA say a dry metal on metal torque is required. But if you insist on greasing them bad boys up I suggest under torquing them by 25 percent and re-torque them multiple times after driving to insure they haven’t loosened.
Thanks for the detailed comment! Nice to hear some supporting evidence!
Would be interesting to see what impact antisieze has on corroded lugs, I'm guessing it probably brings clamp load closer to "new' specifications. As a rule I antisieze all my lugs and use a torque wrench, never had an issue with stretched threads or broken studs.
Yet
There is a video on RUclips where a guy does the same test with new, corroded and corroded and lubed bolts. Corrosion reduces clamping force to ~30% of clamping force of a new bolt. Lubing it brought it back to ~80%
I've been an ASE certified mechanic for 11 years worked on thousands of cars and owned many cars for hundreds of thousands of miles and yet the ONLY problem I've encountered is lugs without antiseize on them. Every time some crack head at a tire shop blasts your lugs off and or on, at full speed with a impact gun is what will get this problem started. I do what my instructors had tought me and it never fails, ever. Now over applying antiseize is bad and less is more when it comes to high load applications but in mine and every ASE certified master tech teacher I've ever learned from, has the derect instruction to use it after factory bolt coatings have been compromised.
I'm interested in diffrent types of antiseize and measurable amounts in application alongside the effects of heat/cold and material grade that had antiseize applicated. Re-torque lugs you use antiseize on, is in my opinion strongly advised as over applying will allow spec to looses as where just enough will stay in spec. Remove excess if torque spec fell out after 50 miles, then again at 50 miles if there was a correction. [do it right the first time]
Spark plugs on another note can react negatively with antiseize especially those with a low torque rating to begin with but otherwise high torque plugs, do just fine and prevents the use of adding a helicoil down the road.
My experience is tried and true with time to tell and all I suggest is if you do use it, don't over do it. .5-1 milliliter appropriately placed will do its job correctly but do cover all the threads. Application is KEY!
A shirt ton of the stuff is all bad and unfortunately in my opinion voids this experiment, I like the example though!
To add some gravity, I placed 1st in Skills U.S.A., a national competition for mechanics.
Thanks for weighing in! I will agree with you that for re-torqueing there is a place for anti-seize. The thread surfaces get chewed up after the first torque application and then friction increases, thereby reducing preload on subsequent applications of torque. Some amount of anti-seize can "restore" the original friction properties and give you the initial preload.
In my opinion, however, most people blasting lug nuts on and off are not 1st place ASE certified mechanics and they will definitely not measure out the amount of anti-seize being applied. Most people don't even recheck the torque on their lug nuts after 50 miles. So the problem becomes that people will over do it with the anti-seize and they over tighten on top of that (no torque wrench, no torque stick on an air gun, etc.) Professionals such as yourself take much greater care in what they do.
Gamma Light. Im starting to learn what lubricants to use on my car and hoping that maybe you can help me out
Gamma Light - I was introduced to Anti seize compound in 1960. It was provided to me at a Chevrolet dealership I worked at as the factory recommended cure for the problem we were having with steel studs damaging the threads on the newly introduced aluminum Corvair engines.
The advise of using it sparingly is correct. I left the automotive business in 1962. I continued to work on my own cars for fifty years and I still have the same can of anti seize. No wheels coming off or spark plugs pulling the threads out of heads in all that time.
I agree. Less is always better when applying anti-seize but it is definitely necessary in certain - not all - instances. For example, did you know that NGK spark plugs have a proprietary anti-seize on the threads from the factory? However, once removed they have to have anti-seize added if you want to re-install them. Sparingly, of course.
This guy lives in a place where nuts never rust on to their bolts. Good luck in the real world.
Very interesting video. Thanks for taking the time and effort to research/prepare and post.
While I don't work on cars, I do build many and maintain all of the firearms which I own/shoot. For the AR's that I build, I regularly use anti-seize compound in lieu of thread-locker, whenever torquing both the barrel nut and the buffer tube to the upper receiver as well as when torquing the flash hider to the barrel. In these instances, at least one and often times both thread surfaces (which are either/both aluminum or steel, depending) are black-anodized and thus quite "rough" in comparison to the machined thread surfaces found on automotive lug bolts/nuts. Granted, said firearms don't encounter the bending and/or shearing forces described in your video, however said weapons do experience high temperatures (e.g., the barrel nut-to-upper receiver connection easily reaches nearly 400 degrees F whenever firing long strings of sustained rapid semi-auto fire while the barrel-to-flash connection hider runs near 275 degrees F during the same firing sequences. In addition, vibration is quite severe. After firing tens of thousands of rounds under all manner of firing sequences and conditions, not a single anti-seize/torqued connection has come loose during firing and/or after cool down. However, whenever I want/need to subsequently remove/replace a barrel, etc., the connections can be easily unscrewed and then later on re-assembled, all without damage to the expensive parts involved. I've had to remove factory-installed/assembled screws (e.g., on my FN SCAR's) that had been either red/blue-LockTited and which required copious amounts of direct heat (I.e., propane torch flame) in order to soften the LockTite to where the connection could be unscrewed - when re-assembling, I cleaned/removed all the remaining LockTite and substituted Permatex anti-seize compound and re-torqued - all with great results. Similarly, using anti-seize in lieu of thread-locker on the small fine thread machine screws used to mount riflescopes - works quite well. Although the temperatures experienced during firing are lower at these points, the vibration is still quite severe and the torqued/anti-seize connections never loosen except when purposefully removed to change a scope, etc..
Here's an idea. How about some chemical/petroleum/mechanical engineer type devise an anti-seize that does not lubricate so a lug nut can be torqued to its specified value to put the bolt in its design spring range. Seems like there should be something like that specifically for automotive use.
Good info. However, it has to be remembered that friction changes as lug bolts corrode so that throws theoretical calculations off. I've known for 55 years (since my first car) that it is not recommended that lug bolts be lubed. However, I have lubed them for most of that time and I've never experienced a single problem nor has anyone else I know that lubricates them including professional mechanics. I do, however, generally torque them to slightly less ft/lbs.
Lots of people don't realize this though... or they are too liberal with the anti-seize / grease and they don't reduce torque... plus its hard to say how much. The engineers who designed the car also know that friction increases with corrosion and leads to reduced preload which is why they chose the torque value they did for the lug nuts in the first place. There is ample headroom on preload to account for reduced clamping force with corrosion. So even if you keep on using the recommended torque value you should be safe.
To all of you who are terrified of using any form of lubrication on lug nuts, whether it be oil, grease, or anti-seize, NASCAR has a dry film lubricant applied to the wheel studs on the race cars. Anything added to the threads/nut surfaces that alters the coefficient of friction is considered a lubricant. And, yes of course reduce the torque of lubricated lug nuts by 30%, but that number isn't as ultra critical as some would have you believe, due to safety margins. Dry torque specs will bring the tensile load to 75% of stud yield or 'Proof' load, so there is still a big safety margin to work with. The 30% reduction in torque on lubed threads still brings the stud to the same 75% of yield, so there's still the same safety margin to work with. Using the dry torque spec on lubed nuts will bring you right up to the limit of yield stress before damage is done, but i believe there's still an additional 10% safety margin built in to the max yield stress numbers.
This is mostly true but lacking some important information that may lead people to the wrong conclusion.
First, you are correct that torque specs for reusable fasteners are generally recommended to be calculated for around 75% of the proof strength (not yield strength - they are related but different). BTW the few wheel studs torque specs I looked at were more like 65-70%.
However the crucial bit of information that is missing here is that even a perfect application of the torque spec is no guarantee that this will be the resulting preload. The 75% figure is only the average result. There is a huge variability in this. DOD document MIL-HDBK-60 states a variance of +-25% in preload for a given torque figure, while a test by Blake & Kurtz on 20 identical dry bolts torqued to the same figure resulted in variance of +25 -31% in preload.
The bottom line is that a torque spec calculated for 75% proof strength may result in as high as 94% of the proof strength in some bolts. That 94% is not a coincidence. The 75% rule of thumb was chosen to guarantee that even the outlier bolts will not exceed their proof strength, so no bolt will acquire a permanent deformation, hence allowing reusability. The margin is therefore very low for some bolts, so if dry torque specs are used as is on lubricated bolts some may deform with all the implications of that.
This huge variability is partly why using torque to achieve a given preload is avoided in critical fasteners, and instead more advanced methods are used, like a prescribed amount of rotation, DTI washers or bolts stretched a prescribed amount.
It's a shame the guy making decent technical content embraced your comment with a heart. This is terrible information no one should follow. @asjc27 pretty much nailed it in that 75% is the target but from testing the OEM knows what they ACTUALLY achieve AFTER relaxation of the joint with their $3,000 electric torque wrenches. Depending on the joint, OEMs design a torque or torque to angle (not yield) joint to 50% of proof load. This is usually the WORST case scenario (not better because you have 50% margin) which was partially covered by the video because you're way more likely to unload the joint which then puts 100% of the load in the bolt and you will have a failure. Once they're OK at 50% they may do some more testing or simulation at other pretension levels but if the joint looks good they're done and they target 75%. If they need to sharpen their pencil due to some issue they're seeing in testing or FEA they will pull out their bag of tricks which can include better tooling and controls on the assembly line to bring that +/-25% down to 15%. Your torque wrench will never replicate this and you should follow the unmodified OEM procedure if it states anything other than torque to XX ft-lbs.
Also, throwing out a blanket 30% reduction if you lubricate is equally dangerous for many reasons. People have no idea how many things can vary your actual bolt pretension. The RPM at which you rotate your torque wrench up to the click/beep will change the pretension by a fair amount. Same goes for applying the torque to the bolt and holding the nut steady vs torqueing the nut.
Good video. They should provide lubricated torque specs for everything. I have used anti sieze on pretty much everything including lug nuts and never had a problem.
Thanks for the comment Bobby. It would be nice if they did, but I think with the number of variables present when the anti-seize is applied, they probably do not do it for liability reasons as well.
Embrace Racing do you think lock tite would help with the corrosion and being able to get them off.
To be honest I haven't put too much thought into it...so I'll think out loud here for a minute... loctite is not a friction modifier, so technically you shouldn't have any risk of over tightening your bolts. Second, loctite basically fills up the gaps inside of your threaded bolt/nut coupling and this is what prevents loosening. That being said, you may get the added benefit of preventing water(salt water) from seeping inside and acting as an electrolyte for galvanic corrosion to occur. I can't guarantee it will prevent it, so if it still does occur, you might be double screwed when you try to use a penetrating spray to loosen rust because the loctite will prevent it from getting in the threads. That's a tough call!
Also, to add to this conversation... I live in Canada so I typically change my wheels annually for the winter. I have no problem using dry fasteners as they typically do not seize in one season. I'm not sure what your experience is like because of your location.
Embrace Racing so on your personal cars you don't use anti sieze? And have no problems getting the lugs or other bolts off? Do they use salt where you are?
I’m dealing with a similar issue, but in a different application. I am pondering lubed vs unlubed torque value for keel bolts in a sailboat. So nice to see you replicate the approx 25-30% difference in clamping pressure that most bolt torque tables show for dry vs lube bolt torque values. I’m going to use about 25% less torque than my sailboat mfg suggested dry torque value and use anti seize. My reason for this is twofold: first the bolt/nut are stainless steel (which is prone to galling), and second, I want to get the clamping pressure values for all 12 bolts as close as possible. Again, thanks for posting this. Very helpful.
There's vehicles in my driveway that have had anti seize on the lug threads longer than I've been alive, never an issue and they always come right off with no fuss. Lately I've been trying out bearing grease on the threads since it's nowhere near as messy and have been happy with that as well.
Do you adjust your torque value?
@@EmbraceMaking Use a 1/2" drive ratchet on the smaller cars to tighten them down until I can't put any more force on them if I don't have a torque wrench handy, which winds up being around 70-80 foot pounds when I check them with a torque wrench. On the bigger cars and trucks I usually back them off about 10 foot pounds using a torque wrench with thread lubricant, since there is often some dirt and debris mixed in on the threads I don't worry about it too much. For what it's worth, I try not to put anti seize on the conical taper seat of the lug/wheel.
Very informative, good explanation. And you addressed the question I was asking myself, why dont we just reduce the torque specs by say 30%. I live in a rust belt area, rusted lug nuts are not pleasant to deal with. (Especially if your changing a tire and dont have an impact on the side of the road). I think reducing torque specs by say 30% should be explored.
At any rate has anyone had a lug nut problem that they contribute to using anti size? I have been using it for 30 years with out a problem. But maybe I use a lower torque wrench setting?
Hi Ed, reducing torque is common practice in combination with anti-seize but maybe check out some extra resources about how to do it properly.
Yes I was a firm believer in using antisize for years but had to give it up due to the fact that most people over tighten to begin with, but have also noticed that the factory will put something that looks like gear oil on the hub pilot and studds so you can get the wheels off that tuff first time, I think that people would live where corrosion is a problem must find a way, one outfit I worked for simply used the small air hose on the big impact to install, and it worked, but left me wondering.
I use anti seize on all bolts and nuts, except on lug nuts. My honda manual does not mention it to put anything on lug nuts but in most of the other places, yes. Good video man
Thanks for watching!
Direct quote from the directions for use of Permatex Anti-Seize Lubricant: "WARNING: Not for use on wheel lug nut or stud applications." (drops microphone)
Stay in automotive long enough and you'll be amazed at how much nonsense the lawyers have injected into it ...... It's why most shop "brake jobs" these days involve replacing calipers that are fine when pads are replaced. Ask the mechanics involved how they actually do their own brakes at home !
@757WN two drops of oil. That's all you need. not white Lube not grease not anything else straight 30
But that's by the lubricant manufacturer, not the car manufacturer
I've been working on vehicles for over 45 years. I always applied anti-sieze to wheel lugs. I have never had a wheel come loose or fall off. I have never broken a wheel stud either. Lately, I have stopped using anti-sieze on wheel studs and now only use a light layer of wheel bearing grease.I still get the same results using grease over anti-sieze. I use anti-sieze on parts that are exposed to heat, such as exhaust manifolds and exhaust systems. Wheels studs do not get hot. Maybe a little warm, but not hot.
I think this was a very informative and educational video for noobs (like me) and more informed viewers. I just had this problem and it took three days and a multitude of various tools to try and remove a stripped lug nut from my fiance's car. We were halfway into a trip and couldn't get the tire off to put a donut on. She often visits her family in the country and the dirt/debris that kicks up is terrible.
We don't have an impact gun, all our tire work is done by hand with very rare exceptions. I broke my four way folding multi-size tire iron trying to pry this damn thing loose.
That being said, I think I'll still use anti-seize, but take care not to over torque it. I also check the air regularly and will also check the lug nuts as well.
I am conflicted on this now and will have to do more research because it's always such a nightmare to get the lug not off. Plus, most of the tire irons, etc, that we have used are technically the right size, but still not quite snug or grip well. It ends up trying to turn with a few degrees of play and strips the nut.
Thank you again though and if I you find a solution to both, please link to this video!
Update: I got a great torque wrench and the specs on new bolts for my car. I adjusted the torque down 30% from spec since I'm using seize lube. I'm also checking the bolts once a week for chance in hold to be safe. I've had good luck with seize lube before, but from an ignorant stand point. We'll see how this goes, I feel a lot better about it.
@@cluracan2670, how are your torque readings holding up after applying the anti-seize?
@@something164 so far so good.
The upside to this discussion is that I never thought about torque, shearing, & bad bolt application. It's made me more conscientious and probably headed off a serious safety issue.
Plus, now we keep 48" torque wrenches in each car, making it easier to change the tires but also prevents bolts stripping/bending.
This video was a force multiplier for knowledge!
Why didn’t you tighten the nut on the machine with anti-seize to the 5500 psi reading then see what torque you had tightened it to? That wet torque rating would show you the percentage of the dry torque rating and you could use that factor to apply the correct wet torque.
Great video. Ideally, the smart engineers would overdesign the stud and wheels such that if anti-seize were used and dry-torque specs maintained, all components involved could take the increased load...at least, I would hope so!
its more expensive so they wont do that
My intuition was as your conclusion but very glad to have seen your video analysis confirming this. Thanks.
OK, tyre shops do hundreds of bolts with some different conclusion but individuals who know their cars can keep in mind your analysis. Imformative. 🙏
From Permatex TDS sheet. "GENERAL INFORMATION
WARNING: Not for use on wheel lug nut or stud applications".
Thanks Gerald! Was this just from their generic anti seize product?
geat video .. at 76 years old I have always copa greased my wheel nuts / studs .. and almost never used a torque wrench .. never up to now had a wheel say bye bye.
I have been coating lug bolts, studs, wire wheel splines, hubcentric wheel/hub contact points, and valve stem threads with anti-sieze for going on 50 years. Works perfectly. Never had a lug loosen or become significantly overtorqued. I live in the northeast where the powers that be just love to use dry and liquid salt on the roads, before, during, and after a snow storm. I use the never-sieze sparingly. A very light dry coat that colors the rust a silvery gray is more than sufficient. I have a background in the automotive repair business.
Hi there, I'm up in Canada and I know all about salt on the roads. Everyone is going to have a difference experience, but I hope what people can take away from this video is that there is a very precise science behind bolted joints. Variations in frictions can result in large changes in pre-load. Thanks for watching!
We need to have the torque requirement for the use of anti seize.
Whatever Ft-Lbs you are trying to torque to, just multiply it by 0.7 and you will get the Ft-Lbs you should actually set the torque wrench to.
For example 44ft-lbs X 0.7 = 30.8ft-lbs
Multiplying by 0.7 is the same exact thing as reducing by 30%
Those of you in the rust belt and cold areas with salted roads can thank me later!
It's extreamly easy formula to follow.
My lugs are 80-120 Ft-Lbs according to Chrysler torque spec on my vehicle.
I normally shoot for 100 Ft-Lbs and that means I dial in 70 Ft-Lbs if I use Nickel-Graph/Copper/Silver/Blend Anti-Seize.
Good tip. I suppose this wouldn't work if your nuts and bolts aren't already corroded. If they are rusty, putting anti-seize on them would probably even it out.
Hello from germany. If the threads are in good condition I mount them dry, if they are rusty I clean them with a wire brush and give them one or two drops of oil. But I know that lots of oldtimer and 4x4 guys are using copper grease on the wheel nuts/bolts, and never heard that someone had an issue with that. In my opinion it might be o.k. to use a very little bit (!) of copper grease and reduce the torque about lets say 10 nm.
I`d like to add that I have a copper grease tin from Granville UK, and it is written and also pictured on the tin that you can use it for wheel nuts and bolts. The use for wheel nuts is also shown on the tin of Würth CU 800 copper paste.
Great video utilizing data and repeatable measurements to prove your point. Nicely done!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
Cool. I use both a micrometer torque wrench (old Proto half inch) and a hf digital torque adapter. I can check torque wrench accuracy and calibrate if needed with torque adapter set to peak trace. Also, after doing 2 passes using torque wrench on lug nuts I sometimes will use digital adapter between torque wrench (set to peak trace) and lug nuts and go around again to verify accuracy. I can get all 20 nuts (at 76 ft lbs dry) on my wheels to within 2 ft lbs of each other.
Very thorough but you're confusing torque and pretension. I guarantee you every single bolt's pretension varies by a lot more than 2 lbs.
This would explain why my vehicle owner manual says not to use anti seize on the spark plugs. As far as rusty lug nuts, to get them off I would use wd40 or pb blaster and then use the power of leverage with an extension on my breaker bar. If it's that tough to get off you probably have bigger issues that need to be dealt with.
John 33 most people don’t carry around an extension or leverage bar when they get a flat tyre though, that’s fine at home but in general people rely on the kit that comes with the car.
I’m here because I had to change a flat tyre at the side of the road last night and my wheel bolts were so difficult to remove I had to kick the hell out of my wheel wrench to get them loose and even after that still struggled turning them all the way out, luckily they came off in the end but I would have been pretty screwed if not. now I’m considering using anti seize Incase it happens again.
Just be careful when adding anti-seize.. try not to over torque !
Embrace Racing think I’ll just add a small amount and then re check them, hopefully will be all good. I also recommend anyone who doesn’t have a spare tyre to buy one because there’s no way one of those tyre sealant repair kits would have gotten me home.
You don't want antisieze or grease on 2-piece lugnuts like used on the super duty and heavy duty trucks with hub-pilot wheels.
They are machined for minimal friction between the nut and washer, and for the washer to not turn against the wheel.
Any lubricant on the washer face will allow it to spin against the wheel, which will gouge into aluminium wheels.
But with stud-pilot or BUDD truck wheels, there is no such thing as too much antisieze.
As good as this information is when putting on lug nuts in winter climates with road salt usage a dry torqued bolt will rust in place and end with broken studs. So you torque bolts approximately 10% less to keep from overloading the studs. Sometimes there is NO good answer and in a world where the majority of bolts are NOT torqued with a torque wrench it is anyone's guess as to the actual torque anyway.
Wong yielding a bolt only decreases the thread pitch (making the bolt out of dimension) but does work harden the fastener you must approach the UTS of the bolt to metallurgically damage it. Under pre-load lead to fatigue not over-preloading.
Thanks for your clear explanation.
Improper use of Anti-size grease can endanger both yourself and vehicle.
Definitely! Thanks for watching!
If you were to instead observe the load gauge to arrive at the desired bolt tension (e.g. 5.5K psi preload = 60% elongation or stretch), why should it make a difference as to how much torque was applied to the fastener? Would dirty dry threads result in more accurate fastener tightness? Creating the desired bolt tension or stretch is the objective, yes? What am I missing?
As I mentioned, dry threads add rotation friction which must be overcome to apply the proper load to the assembly. A lubricated thread should reduce that dry friction variable and minimize the rotational friction to arrive at the correct bolt tension regardless of the torque needed for that to happen. This is the reason why measuring actual bolt stretch is a better method to arrive at the desired bolt stretch. However, not all threaded fasteners can be measured end-to-end. Lacking that capability, try torquing clean, lubed threads at 70-75% of the specified spec (~33 ft.lbs). That should get you in the same preload ballpark as a dry lug nut tightened at 44 ft. lbs. for 5.5K psi preload.
Forget the anti seize, just use a bit of axel grease. Use a half inch drive ratchet, torque it up using 3 progressive steps with the final being a very solid push/pull, and youre good. Done thousands of lug nuts this way without problem. Every broken lug bolt ive seen, except two have been from trying to remove when seized dry. The other two cases were caused by loosened nuts that were dry. I suspect their undertorque caused by thread friction whereby the nuts mistakenly appeared torqued but the torque was fooled by the rust of the lug and nut threads since I once caught a friend falling into that trap.
I live in the rust belt but never had rust as a problem with lug nuts. A tiny bit of surface rust here or there, nothing to worry about. Lubing a crucial safety component like a lug nut sounds insane.
It's a torque vs tension problem it's hard to determine the right to work with a rusted bolt or at lubricated Bolt torque specs are rated on dry Clean bolts what you're really looking for is the proper tension
This video answered questions I didn't even know I had! Thanks!
Happy to help!
The minor thread diameter of a 3/8-16 bolt is .297". This means the bolt's cross-sectional area is not .0775 sq. in....it is .0693 sq. in. So, the stress on the bolt is actually greater than 71,000 and 106,000psi. In fact, the stress on the lubricated bolt is very close to its yield strength. One more reason to use given torque values on dry, clean threads.
Thanks Larry, good catch!
@@EmbraceMaking Actually, you were right the first time. It's Larry who made the mistake. Yes, a 3/8" 16 has a minor diameter of 0.2938" (not quite 0.297) which gives a minor diameter area of 0.0678 in^2 (not quite 0.0693), but that is the wrong area to use for stress.
The tensile area of a bolt is not the one corresponding to its minor diameter. Remember - the threads carry tension too - so the effective cross section (the tensile stress area) is in between the minor and major diameters. It can be calculated (you can easily find the equations) or read from a table.
Looking at a table, the tensile stress area of a 3/8"-16 is 0.0775 in^2 - just as in the video.
hey whats up. I have a co-worker that goes crazy with this anti-seize stuff. I like this video cause it was super interesting. rather than just putting a dap, he covers the whole thing with anti-seize. now in your video you said that over time if you keep using anti the stud or the bolt will loose tension and it wont hold as well. well, I work at a shop that cars come back all the time for tires. or I see that the car previously had anti already on it. well bottom line I have two questions.
1. what can happen if you put too much anti-seize?
2. if you put too much, over time can your lug nut slowly loosen and fall off?
video was awesome please get back at me.
Thanks for the comment! Anti-seize will change the friction as I mentioned in the video which will increase pre-load (bolt tension) for a given amount of torque. As you can see, it's not difficult to change it enough to exceed the yield strength of the material and cause total loss of elasticity in the bolt. That being said, it's very difficult to quantify how much anti-seize is considered "too much," OR if any amount at all is acceptable. That would be something that would have to be measured experimentally I would imagine. So unless your co-worker plans on doing the experiment and then applying anti-seize with a syringe, I would recommend that he doesn't use it on wheel studs unless the manufacturer recommends it (and can provide a wet torque rating). So to answer number one and two at the same time, any amount of anti-seize has the potential to cause the wheel nut to back off and fall off if torqued to the dry torque spec of the bolt (stud). It can stretch the bolt and you will have zero clamping force potentially. Let me know if that makes sense to you :) Thanks for watching!
From 60% to 90% yield rating is actually a 50% increase in load, it is an increase of 30% of total load rating.
I wondered if anybody was going to catch that.
Yes, someone else brought that up... I could have been more specific to say that it is a 30% increase in the load with respect to the yield. It would be 50% increase if I was referencing the previous load as you stated.
Great info. I’m still going to put anti seize on my studs because they’re rusty so it should offset the added friction of the rust and jacked up lugs 🤣
Better that you remove the rust and torque dry and clean.
Good information and presentation. I gotta say though seems like modern culture, especially in America has become fearful, and want to put a rule on EVERYTHING. I can understand how this is crucial information in the world of certain racing and aviation applications. As a shade tree mechanic of 50 years I will continue to wire brush threads, apply a thin film of oil, and snug things up. The biggest mistake I see people make are not cleaning parts thoroughly, especially rusty brakes, and cranking things down, way to tight, not good for anything, especially rotors. The argument should be made that just as anti sieze can result in a bad torque reading, so can a rusty wheel stud/nut, as that will create a lesser tight bolt, and inconsistencies between boIts, I venture to say, in real life, rusty instalations account for more problems. Really, when was the last time you heard of someone's wheel coming off, excluding those installed by a Just Tires mechanic? Lol 😆
Thanks for the comment! It's not necessarily about putting a rule on everything (I'm not a big fan of that 'movement') but more about good technical practice. Actually, wheels come off of vehicles on a pretty regular basis, they just usually don't make the news unless it is a transport truck. In this article from 2019: www.caasco.com/blog/Automotive/dont-let-the-wheels-come-off-how-to-prevent-wheel-separation it shows that in a four year period in the province of Ontario, Canada alone, there were 389 reported cases of wheels separating from light (passenger) vehicles and 29% resulted in a collision. That obviously doesn't account for all of the unreported ones as well. I know as a percentage of all of the vehicles on the road in the province it isn't a huge number, but it's still significant enough that someone (multiple people) have probably been killed or badly injured as a result. I would say it's worth letting people know what the recommended practice is
@@EmbraceMaking You make good points, I shouldn't dispute your effort, knowledge is power, best shared with everyone, keep up the good work. I do think though, you are touching on a very specific technical point, nothing wrong with that. I would venture a guess that the problem with wheels coming off on Monday has more to do with how much they drank on Sunday, and a general problem with lazy, carelessness. Also wheels are not standard in the ways they are attached, too many variants and complex spacers, binding nuts, et cetera, that complicates things. I've always appreciated the simplicity of a black steel, fleet style wheel and the lug nuts that seat into the nice beveled holes, spun in place with a 4 way lug wrench. Probably covered with a dog dish hubcap. When you start fiddling with simplicity, problems arise. As a side note I took my 2000 Town Car to Just Tires in Culver City, I paid 700 bucks for top of the line Goodyears, they offered me half off on a wheel alignment, I played the sucker, I should have gone to Bagge, my usual, the steering wheel was crooked and it pulled to one side. Went back for the fix, same problem. Said it was within specs. Took it to Bagge and Sons. The first thing the mechanic says is all the bolts are loose! In the end they did a beautiful alignment, car tracks perfectly, wheel is straight. The Just Tires kid knowingly sent me down the road with control arms ready to pop, this is stuff that goes on. I've driven more than a million miles in LA, taxis, Limos, I have seen some crazy stuff, one time I did see a wheel coming in my direction, it was a bigass, like off the back of a Vette, 10 Fwy and Crenshaw, from the oncoming lane, that was scary, it was bouncing like a ball, thirty feet in the air, went by me 100 ft away, I never did hear a crash. Sorry to ramble, this California lock down leaves me lots of time to blue face. Lol.
@@kccodex8931 His point here is moot though. Tires coming off doesn't equal tires coming off due to lubrication applied. Anecdotally, I have never seen anyone's tire come off that I have put on or have seen put on. With hundreds of variations in tire size, bearing size, levels of lubrication including anti-sieze, and levels of rust. And in many applications up to and including racing conditions and towing conditions. All torqued by hand with a fourway and no torque wrench. If a tire comes off then anti-seize didn't cause it. It is possible that it makes other factors more dangerous, but it isn't inherently dangerous itself. In shops that only use impact tools I would say not to use it without proper torque specs, but if they were listed for wet lug nut applications they could easily use it with them as well. His experiment is flawed here so his numbers are exaggerated at best.
So people its your choice what you want to do after watching video n reading comments, it seems both are OK as long as you know how to use antiseeze n how much to tighten-20-30% less people are saying, but what if some one else tighten lug nuts n not you n might use more?
Both have ups n downs
Also i am going to get a torque wrench, didnt know i should use one on lug nuts until recently
Hi Michael, yes, if you know what you're doing its probably okay, but that was the point I was trying to make. Most people don't reduce the torque when using anti-seize so that is why manufacturers recommend dry assembly.
i agree 100% with Rod Pile, I have been using anti-seize for 35 years on everything i assemble and never had one failure as a result of using it, where we live here in canada if you do not use it the bolts and nuts rust on so bad as well as wheels, drums, rotors etc that you have to use it, do not agree with these people who say to not use it, I think it must be from people who never get there hands dirty and sit in an office
I can't think of a single car using a nut and bolt, as done in the test, to attach wheels. The taper or spherical seat provides more friction than a flat bolt face and washer. I use anti-seize on wheel studs and have for over 50 years-ever since I snapped off a few wheel studs and made a lot of work for myself.
The nut and bolt is clearly just for demonstration purposes to get the point across. The numbers are also for demonstration purposes. I think that is pretty clear... I understand people have done things a certain way for many years without issue. I'm not saying that if you use anti-seize your wheel will fall off tomorrow. The point being made is that it is not intended for the application as any automotive engineer will tell you, and it increases the likelihood of something happening, not guarantees it. Even the other day I purchased a new set of wheels for my car... in the instruction booklet that comes with each wheel it explicitly states not to use anti-seize on the studs. This is widely accepted as best practice.
@@EmbraceMaking Lawyers are the reason for the no anti-seize warning. Just like the warning not to remove spark plugs from a hot engine. As an automotive engineer I can tell you anti-seize works well when used properly. Your experiment was not representative of an actual application or circumstance and means nothing as far as the issue of anti-seize goes. Why not update your experiment using an actual wheel and lug nuts?
@@chash7335 If the lug nuts and anti-seize combination were fail proof as you are suggesting, there would be no need for lawyers to get involved. The fact that user manuals and documentation exist showing that anti-seize is not recommend to be used on lug nuts would suggest that there is some level of risk involved. Just because you've done something for 50 years one way without issue doesn't mean that someone else won't have a problem. I can smoke for 50 years and not die of lung cancer but we all know smoking can cause lung cancer. I'm also an automotive engineer and I can tell you that the geometry of a conical seat or ball seat lug nut does not make the nut exempt from the effects of lubricant on the threads. The friction produced by the thread interface contributes to the overall friction the nut experiences as part of the equation I provided in the video. Reducing the friction increases the pre-load and you could over torque and stretch the bolt rendering it useless. This is just as bad as a under torqued lug nut. This is why dry and wet torque ratings exist... lug nuts are nuts with a different shape, it still applies to them. Their shape is used to aid in centering the stud within the bore such that mechanical loosening of the nut doesn't happen with an eccentric motion acting on the nut. This certainly helps prevent loosening but as I said, if you stretch the bolt it no longer acts to compress the bolted joint and it will loosen. I didn't run the demonstration with an actual lug nut because I didn't have a matching conical or ball seat surface to clamp down onto in the pre load measuring device. I would have had to get a piece machined for no good reason. It was a simple demonstration showing the relationship between torque, friction and resulting preload whose concept applies to lug nuts also.
@@EmbraceMaking Fools are far smarter and persistent than lawyers.
Great info! What a fun surprise it was to find this video. I'm freaking with semi truck sis and lug nuts and was curious about anti seize usage. So this was very helpful.
What about doing something similar on using loctite?
Keep up the great work. And thanks for sharing the knowledge.
I use anti seize on my lugs. I torque till the lug wrench flexes. I have done this on like 30+ cars and trucks for the last 35yrs. Never had a wheel come loose or a stud break(with exception of a huge pot hole going too fast on a backroad.) Sometimes you can over think things.
Thank you very much, a great informative video given in a format that actually helps me visualize the problem.😀👍
You are welcome! Thanks for watching!
Would engine grease on the wheel bolt provide the same effect? I would imagine that anti-seize is different in its chemical composition. Are you saying that we should dry torque bolts? The manufacturer does not specify whether wet or dry.
+dynaweave Engine grease would definitely provide a similar effect. It will reduce friction and result in more preload for the same torque. If the documentation for your vehicle doesn't specify, it would be safe to assume that it is a dry torque spec (for wheels). I've never personally seen a manufacturer specify lubrication/anti-seize for wheel studs.
M12x1.5 nuts. Very tiny bit of silicone grease along each stud. 80% of manufacturer specified torque. Have no problem with nuts, even after drifting or 1000 mile highway trip. No rust on studs, in UK where rust is eating every car away.
This becomes a much bigger issue on wheels that are lug centric. Hub centric wheels transfer the weight of the wheel mostly from the hub to the wheel. Not from the studs to wheel, as a stud centric wheel does. Wheel studs on a stud centric setup do double duty (clamping & support of the vehicle wieght), and is part of why most modern production cars use hub centrist wheels. It prevents the greater rate of wheel stud failures of the old stud centric wheels. Some after market wheels are stud centric to increase the number of vehicles they can be used on without a redesign, and is important to keep in mind.
Due to heavily salted roads for 6 to 8 months my maintenance schedule, and parts needing to be replaced is much higher then an environment without salt. So I replace my wheel studs far more often. Even in a less forgiving environment, wheel studs are only designed to be torqued a certain amount of times before losing thier ability to strech. It's why they should be replaced everytime you get new tires. Specialy if the shop uses impact guns & torque sticks. In a worse case, just impact guns.
I use just a smige of anti-seeze (very technical term lol) inside of the lug nut. This keeps the the nut from becoming one with the stud, and prevents the anti-seeze from getting on the lug face. I will also use a q-tip to smear the none contact area of the wheel studs with a very thin film of axle grease to significantly slow down the rusting of that portion of the stud. This way the dam lug nut can be removed after 3 of the 6 months of (au)salted hell for a tire rotation, and the studs make it through winter. The studs get cleaned with break cleaner, and redone reinstalling the wheels. Use of a torque wrench is important. Due to the salt I replace my studs every year. On the fronts this is done by default when replacing the rotor.
On my drum rears I have measured the stud length brand new, and again after one winter (2 tire rotations), spring & summer (another 2 tire rotatiins). They were well under the acceptable amount of stud strech. It's the best way to determine if the studs have been over torqued (by anyone), and ruined your studs or if they have just reached the end of thier service life.
And if the stud and nuts a bit rust you also will not get a good tork on the nut I am 54 years old and have used anti seize on lug nuts. And never wasted my money on the lug tork bars and to this day never had a problem. Exe a loos wheel a broken stud and I am not saying anything you are saying is WROUNG I loved the info verry professional info. I work on tralor and trucks alot of rusty nuts
On the other hand, if your bolts are rusty, you will have too little preload. I live in the rust belt, and use a little anti-seize on the bolts and on the mating surface of the wheels and have never had an issue. I wish auto manufacturers would use it on every nut and bolt on the car. Whenever I have the opportunity, I undo bolts and nuts, put anti-seize on the thread and torque them back again. I also use anti-corrosion spray in any electric connector I can.
Excellent information, thanks and your explanation/presentation could not have been better. As an FYI and like others who have commented, I have used anti-seize on lugs for years with no apparent long-term illeffects. I never used a torque wrench because I've done this enough times to know what 75lbs of foot-force feels like. I will say that I likely let up a bit because of the lubrication torque ease. My bigger worry is too much torque causing rotor warpage. As for becoming loose, that will usually become apparent with wheel wobble at high speeds (alignment-like need). Regardless of my experience, I learned a lot from your video that will make me conscious moving forward. Well done and thanks.
Have a look in the vehicle owners manual or ask at the sales service centre. The mechanic’s for your brand of vehicle should have this information.
If the info is in the owner's manual you will likely find it will suggest dry torque.
Thanks for this info. I just installed rear shocks and used anti seize. I realized something was wrong because it seemed like I was never reaching the torque of 56 ft pounds I needed. It just seemed way too much wrenching to get there. I'm going to toot those bolts and get new ones on there tomorrow... dry.
Good plan! Hope that worked for you!
Excellent insight. Thanks for the advice!
Glad it was helpful!
A good way to prevent fasteners from seizing is to use a product used in motor racing called "Copper Ease" two companies who stock it are Screwfix and Haifords to prevent seizure of nuts. it works wonders
Very informative. Very SCIENTIFIC. Extremely useful. Prevented me from putting anti-sieze on lug nuts. (one of lug nuts seized: rust, water).
Thanks for the comment and thanks for watching!
Same here. I was only wondering if it is a good idea because the lug bolts on my car can be impossible with the wrench that came with the car. If you ever had a difficult time with a car that has aluminum wheels you will know what I mean. I keep a breaker bar and socket in the trunk of my car and even then the lug bolts seem too tight at times. I still have the wrench that came with the car but it is really somewhat undersized for what it was intended for. It is not just a problem with my car but many of them. It is feels like whoever chose to include that wrench never had to change a tire before. I only ever find myself taking the wheel off the car to inspect the brakes. I am glad it is rare that I ever have to take them off the car.
This is fine and all....but how many garages are there around the country that never use a torque wrench period...they just use a air ratchet that ends up over torquing the lugs well beyond what you would get with a lubricated pre-load.
Excellent video!!! Thanks for producing!!!
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for that! New knowledge for me.
You're welcome!
i love antiseize. car makers should give a wet torque rating.
Hard to control how much you apply so if they gave you a wet rating it probably wouldn't mean much.
I really don't see the problem here? Just use LESS torque than before. Also, keep in mind that those torque recommendations cooked up by the auto mfgs. are primarily for ease of assembly rather than repair work. Even a DRY bolt/nut will require a DIFFERENT torque rating upon its re-use when repairing. The simple putting on a nut, and then taking it off will CHANGE the threads enough to show a different torque requirement.
It makes more sense why the techs would torque dry bolts and put a mark 30 degrees. Then apply anti seize and tighten to their mark. Dont over torque a bolt ever when possible. Some of the bolts we install are in the thousands of dollars range. Torqued to several thousand ft lbs. Breaking or stretching one isn't an option
As I recall and machinery handbook wet tork is calculated according to cutting oil residual.
Excellent Video. Well researched and presented. As a woman in the automotive chemical business for over 30 years I have also heard the pros and cons on the use of Anti-seize in wheel and lug nut applications. I have never seen or heard the effects of using non-specified product more clearly stated and demonstrated. No matter what one's opinion, everything changes when a wheel comes off. Everyone wants something to make their job tasks easier to perform. there is no 'one size' fits all. The wisdom of following the manufacturer specification cannot be stressed enough. How do I receive you permission to share this in my Tech School training sessions?
Hi Pam, thank you so much for the kind words! Feel free to share my video with your students whenever you please! That's why I posted it :)
@@EmbraceMaking I'm getting that warm fuzzy feeling, two people, educated people, coming together to spread valuable information to others. Yaaaaayyyy!
Outstanding teaching video! Thank you!
Thanks Victor! Glad you found it useful!
So reduce the torque spec for threaded fasteners when you use anti-seize. It's simple. "When using anti-seize, you should reduce the torque value by 25-30%. This is because anti-seize acts as a lubricant, which reduces the amount of torque needed to achieve the desired clamping force. This is sometimes called a torque multiplier. If you don't reduce the torque value, you could strip the threads or stretch the bolt. The exact amount of torque reduction depends on the material, so you should check the manufacturer's specifications if you're unsure. For example, when using anti-seize on spark plugs, the torque value can change by up to 20%, which could increase the risk of thread breakage or metal shell stretching."
Anti-seize is critical for steel, titanium, or SS fasteners installed in aluminum. They will seize otherwise, and cause galling when removed or installed. For steel fasteners installed in steel or iron, only light oil is needed. Use anti-seize for it's intended purpose.
Nice video but you only looked at half of the process. Torque verse clamping changes after nut and bolt are tighened due to the fiction change. About 40 yrs. ago a Bowman fastner rep put on a similar demo. If you looked at the bolt and nut under a microscope there are mountain peaks from machining. After the first time you torque it down you have also burnished the peaks down. Now you have more surface area which means more fiction which results in the same torque applied when new will yield less clamping force after first use. You can test this on you buddy's set up. Also go ahead when making this test after you checked a new bolt and nut and take it apart and reinstall the nut on the same side (don’t flip the nut over) and recheck reading, now flip the nut over and retorque and check it again and you will be back close to where you were when everything was new because you are using the other side of the threads. You will lose a little clamping force because of the burnishing of the bolt, but the nut is always softer than the bolt so by flipping the nut you pretty much have a new nut. Then you can go ahead and apply anti- seize and see what you get. Back to the Bowman rep. His advice was to use anti-seize. I have done this for 40 yrs. With no problems. My only question has been did the factory engineers come up with there torque for a new bolt or one that is used (tightened at lest once) or a used bolt. I think for a new one because if you buy a new stud and lug new you torque to specs.
Excellent video! I specifically sought this topic out before putting anti seize on my wheel studs. Sure glad I did!! I REALLY learned something interesting and important from your video. Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks Jeffrey! Glad you learned something from the video!
Good information but not like for like when compared to wheel studs. I would be interested in seeing what the difference in stretch in a wheel stud because it has the large surface area in the taper that should create most of the friction. Anti-seize should be avoided for that area and should only be on the threads.
Interesting.....but you only did one bolt on each method. Is there any variance? Is the pre-load consistent each and ever time?
Thanks! Great no BS information. I always new the torque would increase but not that much. Thanks for saving my lug bolts.
No problem! Glad I could help!
Great to bring this to attention, but there are problems with leaving lug nuts dry. In warm climates where vehicles are not subject to road salt, keeping lug nut free of anti-seize would be good advice. However, those of us to drive through salty slush have a corrosion issue. In addition to problems with steel rims, aluminum allow rims bathed in road salt experience galvanic corrosion, the effect of which is far worse than for steel rims. Removing corroded nuts can cause over torquing while removing. I have seen rusted nuts that have required lengthy cheater bars. This can cause over stressing and thread damage. With aluminum rims, even if the lug nuts are badly corroded, the white corrosion product actually adheres the aluminum rim to its seating surface which is steel. I have had to pound on aluminum rims with considerable impact to break the bond of corrosion. This must be done with care not to damage the rim, such as using a heavy wooden block as the striking implement, or placing a wood block as a pad and striking the pad with a hammer. Once removed, the rim's own seating surface and steel surface on the vehicle must be carefully cleaned. This can take a lou of personal time, or shop labor. A preventative measure is to smear a thin layer of grease over the mating surfaces. Even in salt free climates, repeat cycling of tire changes over the life of a vehicle can damage threads. Lubrication can prevent thread damage. It seals salty water to prevent corrosion. Despite the advice given, in my road salt laden area, I find it necessary to lubricate lug nuts. I find that anti-seize compounds actually dry out and make future removal difficult. A good water resistant grease such as fifth wheel grease works for me. I have never had a wheel loosen off, nor have I had a stud damaged. Lugs and nuts have a good safety factor engineered in, so can stand some extra effective torque. Everyone else must make their own choice.
In Wisconsin I bought a new car and parked in a heated garage all winter. In the spring, I could not get the aluminum rims off, kicking, hitting with a rubber mallet, etc. I even created a small dent when kicking backwards and having bad aim. It took a wooden board and a friend hitting it with a sledge hammer to finally free them. I leaned two things--use anti-seize on the bolts and mating surface and don't park in a heated garage. Things don't corrode which when it's cold out. But when you bring a salty car into the warmth, and let the snow melts, things corrode very quickly.
Very well done, thank you very much!!
Thanks Jeff, appreciate the kind words!
What do we about , the nuts that will rust on . Which I have had happen to me . On my Snowmobile Trailer The Lug Nuts are out in the open.The snow gets on them , water and dirt. Guess what , after being on the Trailer for years. Now you have a flat , on the highway. And I could not get the Lug Nut off .Now multiple that by 5- Lug Nuts . And you got yourself, a big problem.
Thanks for the comment. I'm not suggesting that seized nuts aren't a problem... because that situation is unfortunate. I'm just bringing attention to the fact that improper use of anti-seize can be dangerous. If you decide to use some anti-seize then best practice suggests that you should modify your torque rating accordingly. Otherwise if your studs break and your wheel falls off... well then you don't have any chance of putting on a spare.
What about applying only a bit where the lug nut head meets the alloy, this should prevent "metal baking" and won't affect torque specs. Because as far as available info the threads don't "bake" but the outer parts. What do you think? Regards
The underside of the lug nut touching the cone seat of the wheel will most definitely affect the torque spec. Check the graph on this page... www.boltscience.com/pages/nutorbolttightening.htm
I would suggest following the manufacturer's spec and just go clean and dry. I live in Canada and we use a ton of salt on our roads in the winter and have not come across a completely seized lug nut yet. I change my wheels out for winter tires every year and by removing the lugs annually it seems to be enough to prevent them from seizing.
Embrace Racing thanks for the reply. Definitely right torque specs are ftw. Sometimes air guns in shops become inaccurate and they just exaggerate probably (not always) unintentionally. Regards!
Great video! Thank you for this potentially life saving info. I was just about to lube my lugs but not any more.
You're welcome!
i dont find lug nuts get to corroded.. but the mating surface between the rim and rotor/hub always gets some antiseize/copper coat/ grease when possible ive seen rims stuck to the car and take 6 ft pry bars with full size sledge hammers to remove them
i use antiseize on everything except wheel lugs unless it gets thread locker
typically engine related things and anything where the bolt isnt stationary but spins like a drive shaft gets thread lock
Hi Andrew, do you use the antiseize on the rotor face and back of the wheel? Or only on the spigot?
not sure what you mean by spigot, but around where the lug nuts come through the rotor on the flat mounting area there that the rim touches... obviously not on the friction/braking surface
Thanks Andrew, I would not recommend that. You are lubricated the clamping faces where the wheel touches the face of the rotor. The lug nuts clamp the wheel to the surface and that clamping force along with the coefficient of friction is what keeps the wheels in place. The spigot is the little round lip that protrudes through the center of your rotor and locates the wheel dead center on the hub. This is where I find most wheels seize. I usually apply a little anti-seize there, especially before the winter and this makes it easy to remove the wheels in the spring and will not affect the clamping.
Come to Ohio and try to take lug nuts off and you will see how corroded and rusted they get.
I live in Ontario and it's a very similar situation, especially with all of the road salt used. At the end of the day I'd rather have to use a little extra effort to get my lug nuts off, than have them fall off lol.
I had been wondering about this exact issue.
Hopefully it brought some clarity to your wondering :)
This video was perfect. Answered alot of questions I had, plus provided mathematical proof to back up claim....LOVED IT!! THANX GUYS
You're welcome, thanks for the kind words!
Being a tire technician. Commercial tire technician I see this stuff all the time being used and the old people I have to argue with everyday not to use it will not listen. Most of the time it worsens the situation to the point they / apply it and add it to the center of the Hub. Most people have aluminum rims which are bolted up against Steel. There's two metals that don't like each other in the first place. Then you add another medal. Never sees his copper grade. All it does is f things up it turns into a clay powder and digs into the aluminum. And I can not in some cases get a proper torque. In that case I bring out penetrating oil and a rag and charge people to remove it.
Been using copper anti-seize on all my vehicles and the vehicles I've worked on for other people for the last decade and haven't had a problem with it yet.
I am only wondering about this because the bolts on my Volkswagen can get very difficult to undo. I know that this is a problem with aluminum and similar wheels. I once had a '95 LeBaron with aluminum wheels and but I also had those horrible lug nuts with the thin cap on that car. The cap on those miserable things would eventually come loose and cause problems trying to get it off. I don't know if Chrysler still uses those awful lug nuts but they are sometimes hard enough to remove even when that metal cap on them does not get messed up. My Volkswagen does not have that problem because they did not put those stupid thin metal caps on them. Instead they left them a plain bolt head and there are plastic plugs that hide them. When lug nuts become stubborn like that the wrench that came with your car spare tire and jack will just make it seem practically impossible to remove the lug nuts. You will feel helpless if you didn't bring a breaker bar with the correct impact socket for your car.
Hi Charles, sometimes the problem is material compatibility. Certain material combinations will accelerate corrosion in wet/salty environments.
Loved this video, I was blow away. Thank you so much
It will still act as a spring. The problem will be the next time. Torque to yield is common practice, but then the screws shall never be re-used. Which is not the case for wheel screws.
Great video, thanks for sharing this information
You're welcome, thanks for watching!
Excellent explanation and demonstration. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
What do you recommend in a corrosive environment, such as a boat trailer in salt water?
Check for marine grade anti-seize and adjust the torque according to the manufacturer's guidelines. Thanks!
Well in the case of my wheel studs and nuts which are made of titanium the manufacture requires you to use anti-seize and even provides a small tube of it to use on his product and also states to torque to manufacturers specs I guess what I’m truly saying is stick to what the manufacturer says to do unless you modify in one way shape or form
Outstanding explanation
Thank you!
Anti seize with reduced manufacturer's recommended torque specs by 30%. Perfect. 30% reduction is the right amount and torque needs to be done using an accurate torque wrench, not just a guess. The 30% comes from Ajax fastener hand book for heavily lubricated threads.
I track my car every month, so the wheels comes off twice a month to change between street tyres and track tyres. I've been told to add anti seize to protect the studs from the constant wheel changes. I've done a bit of internet searches and it seem like a 50/50 split between the community about this.
What are your thoughts on this?
+Wrinkledlemon This is a bit of a tough one... mainly because constant tightening and loosening of a bolt/nut can change the surface finish of the thread interfaces. They will become "rougher" and the next time you put your lug nuts back on, there will be increased friction at the thread interface. Then what ends up happening is the same amount of dry torque results in less preload. Then you may run the risk of under-tightening.
That being said, the engineers who designed your bolt pattern likely took this into account (I can't promise you that, but I would bet that something like lug nuts have been looked at in extensive detail over many years). I'd wager a guess that there is enough of a "preload factor" (optimal designed preload on a new set of lug studs divided by the minimum required preload to hold your wheel on) that as preload diminishes with each subsequent installation of your wheels, there will always be enough to hold your wheels on.
This is only a hunch on my behalf but it's a good question. The people who told you to do this, what exactly did they say the anti-seize is protecting the studs/nuts from?
+Embrace Racing I've been told that it helps "minimise the damage from taking on and off all the time." I'm assuming the 'damage' is the roughening of the thread surface as you mentioned.
I recently had a stud get cross threaded as I was taking the nut off and had to replace that stud. This was after about, 16 wheel swaps. I'm now hesitant on continuing with wheel swapping because of the wasted time and money to replace the damaged stud.
I'd hoped anti seize would help prevent studs from breaking but the potential over tightening with anti seize as shown in your video has put a pause in my decision as well.
+Wrinkledlemon What do you use to install the lug nuts? Do you use an air gun to buzz them on? It's pretty difficult to cross thread if you do it by hand. I know it's more time consuming but like I said, very difficult to cross thread by hand...
+Embrace Racing I use a torque wrench (@89ft/lb) to install them. The nut, however, became stuck when I was removing it, not when I was putting it on.
+Wrinkledlemon Very strange that it was when it was being removed. Have you looked into ARP studs? If you're tracking and installing/uninstalling all of the time, maybe it would be a good idea to upgrade all of them. I'd give them a call and get their recommendation since they specialize in it. Let me know what they say!