Spidertrax... To torque or not to torque??

scarletbegonias · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:58 am

A while ago I went back in (as recommended after 50-100 mi after install) to the place that installed the Spidertrax wheel spacers onto my wheels and when I went back the install guy would not check the torque on my Spidertrax... (He used a lot of loctite glue on the lug nuts during the install, as I suggested) He said that taking off the tires and tightening the torque of the lug nuts to check the torque on the Spidertrax lug nuts will 'break' any strong seals that the loctite glue may have formed on install and he didn't want to do that.. I saw his point then, but NOW I'm thinking that hey..driving vibrations and stuff could just as easily loosen the loctite seal on any of the lug nuts and make them go loose just the same..

..Just curious if anyone here has any suggestions.. Do you think I should just keep em as-is with the excessive loctite on em, or bring it somewhere else and get the lug nuts re-torqued/tightened (and by doing so, possibly breaking any strong glue seals that may have been there?)

cmohr · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:00 pm

You'll know if you hear a slight ticking/clicking noise when cornering that they are getting loose. It's not actually the nuts becoming loose, its the alloy bedding in onto the hub, and the lugnuts bedding into the spacer that makes it become "loose". I re-tensioned mine, at about 300 miles, I personally think its a good idea. I also found that when they were new, I had to redo it again a fw times, once again, sometimes I would hear a faint ticking noise when cornering, but now that they are older, and have been off and on the car a few times ( I change between onroad and offroad tyres frequently) they only really need to be toorqued the once and they are good. Note- you don't just swing harder on them, to re-tension them you have to loosen them off and then re-torque them, if you try to just swing on them to tighten them, you risk snapping the stud. Its a good idea to only use the blue "servicable" loctite on them for this reason.

Anyway..thats what I do.

tommudd · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:34 pm

What I did when I had mine was to run them about 500 miles, and just took the torque wrench and checked each one, they were all still tight so didnot really do anything, just checked them. They never did come loose the 3000 or so I had them on. Course 1700 of that was a trip to Boston and back pulling a trailer!

So I would say check them but you dont have to break them loose to do it, if one is loose it would show up or should

Cobalt-60 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 06, 2008 4:47 pm

I ran mine for about 300 miles before I re-torqued them (right before I took it off-road for the first time with the Spidertrax -- better safe than sorry). They had not moved at all.

I have heard conflicting reports about not re-torquing because you break the bonds that the loc-tite has made, but if the manufacturer says to do it, then yes, I recommend doing it...

KJ04 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:05 am

tommudd wrote:

What I did when I had mine was to run them about 500 miles, and just took the torque wrench and checked each one, they were all still tight so didnot really do anything, just checked them. They never did come loose the 3000 or so I had them on. Course 1700 of that was a trip to Boston and back pulling a trailer!

So I would say check them but you dont have to break them loose to do it, if one is loose it would show up or should

Yes, I did pretty much the same thing with mine. I used the blue loctite and torqued to 110 lbs., after 150 miles I set the wrench just under to 105 lbs. to check if they had loosened and then again at the 110 lb. setting. All was well, and I will recheck them at 1,000 miles to confirm.

Spidertrax... To torque or not to torque??

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