Reduced Torque with Lubricated Bolts

   / Reduced Torque with Lubricated Bolts #21  
I've never put it on the stud threads. Only the nut surface where it contacts the rim when using the stainless wrapped nuts.
What is a stainless wrapped nut? I already searched online for stainless wrapped nuts and found nothing. In my career as a machinist for 40 odd years and working in many different machine shops that served the electronics, aircraft, and logging industries, as well as being self employed for the last 20 or so years and having customers in the marine and oil extraction business I figured I had seen pretty much all types of fasteners. It turns out there are still fasteners I have yet to hear about. Are these some type of marketing gimmick? A cosmetic thing?
Thanks,
Eric
 
   / Reduced Torque with Lubricated Bolts #23  
What is a stainless wrapped nut?
That link Coastie provided is them. Stainless capped nuts is probably the correct term. It looks like the original Ford design were aluminum cap over the steel nut, not stainless.

I think Ford may have had a class action lawsuit over them. I had an F150 and when I went to do a brake job, I couldn't get any of the wheels off using cheater bars, impact wrenches etc. It seems that Ford actually had 2 different issues with them.
The first was swelling of the nuts, so the OEM lug wrench wouldn't fit. Caused by corrosion between the wrap and the nut itself, swelling the wrap. The second issue is galling of the nut face to the anodized aluminum rim, especially if the tire monkeys used impact wrenches to install.
 
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   / Reduced Torque with Lubricated Bolts #24  
You can find most everything on the internet. The chart above should have been left where it was found though.

I'm a retired tractor engineer and one of my first training assignments was running the bolt lab for our construction machine division. A sign was in the lab: "torque is what we do; tension is what we want." We also want consistency. On the assembly line, every bolted joint is set to a specification. That spec is determined in the lab; MANY bolted joints were torqued to "proof".... meaning: it is the torque (and tension) of a bolt at its yield point. The torque set on the line is then backed off by the plus tolerance of the wrenching system. Consistancy is everything. If a new shipment of bolts differ (supplier, plating, etc) bolts start breaking on the line.

Every kind of bolt finish imaginable is tested: raw, phos & oil, electro plate, mechanical plate, etc. Oiled bolts can be the most inconsistent of the bunch! Most consistent by far: dry mechanical plated.

Do NOT oil any bolt (on purpose) that a manufacturer has published a spec for. Fine threads don't offer any tension advantage either (any advantage is eaten up in additional thread friction)... because of that, they excel in high vibrational applications. Hope this helps.
My understanding was that all things being equal (material/mating part thread depth/bolt grade/finish/thread engagement/etc.) fine thread bolts have a tensile and/or shear strength advantage over course thread bolts due to the larger root diameter.
Did that not play out in your testing?
 
   / Reduced Torque with Lubricated Bolts #25  
I've been using on the studs on every vehicle I've owned in the last 55 years, and have never had a problem of any sort.
Unless you count trying to get it off my hands.
 
   / Reduced Torque with Lubricated Bolts #26  
I've been using on the studs on every vehicle I've owned in the last 55 years, and have never had a problem of any sort.
Unless you count trying to get it off my hands.
That makes two of us and I am continuing with using it, stick with what works.
 
 
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