Wheel nuts: how to anti-seize without over-tightening
The beer garden physics of high-tensile fasteners and some driveway therapy on lockdown: a pre-emptive strike against the pain in the arse that is changing a spare tyre at the roadside…
Life on lockdown has left your car sitting idle, begging for nuts to seize, batteries to croak, and tyres pressure to go unchecked. Here’s how to ensure the life of your nuts, upon which your family is a-rollin’.
As you prepare to fire up your chariot and charge into the sunrise with a head full of steam and little regard for mechanical sympathy, there’s every chance you are going to get a flat tyre and have to change it.
Your vehicle has been subject to a change in seasons, copping temperature changes, humidity increases and if you haven’t even given thought to your wheels since the last time it had new tyres - you’re loading chambers on the revolver of automotive misery.
Take a couple of hours out of your busy procrastination schedule, get out of your dearly-beloved’s hair and have the good sense to prep your car for heading back into the fray.
Of course not everyone will agree with this report, and have their own ideas and feedback about using anti-seize >> Even if they’re wrong.
If you do believe in facts and need to know how to use anti-seize while correctly applying a torque wrench, click here >>
Things you’ll need:
Rattle gun (recommended, they’re awesome), or a tyre lever at the very least.
One pot of copper grease, any brand, it’s all the same.
Torque wrench
Impact sockets, size to suit your vehicle
Rubber mallet
Appropriate car jack and axle stands - compulsory. Pro Tip: do not use bricks or wood or any other nasty, dangerous hack-job attempt to drop a car on yourself
Wheel chocks - the bigger and heavier, the better
Your brain, awake and attentive
Disclosure:
If this kind of exercise absolutely terrifies you, to the point of glazing-over and wondering what the hell is an impact socket, you should definitely not attempt to even jack up your car.
Clearly the bear basics of mechanical DIY is a cognitive bridge too far. Changing a tyre is something every single person with a license should know how to do, by law.
Idle thoughts
Cars hate being idle, so there’s plenty you can do to minimise the risk of breakdown when travel restrictions lift in coming weeks and you are once again a free-range human.
More life-after-lockdown pro tips:
As a minimum, check the vital fluids - radiator, engine oil, and brakes; anything with a yellow cap on it in the engine bay is a target for some kind of investigation, potentially.
Look for corrosion on the battery terminals. If you haven’t driven in a while, it might be a good time to hook up a battery charger.
You might notice the engine oil level has actually risen if you’ve only been doing short trips to the local shops - and driving of that nature. That’s generally pretty normal. It’s oil dilution from fuel getting past the rings and into the oil before all the parts warm up.
Unless there’s a design defect in the engine - or a fault in yours specifically - the cure for this is pretty simple: Go on a long drive, like for an hour or so up the freeway (when that is once again allowed). Everything heats up, the volatile components in the oil evaporate off, they get PCV’d back into the combustion chamber. It’s a beautiful thing.
When you get back home - check the oil level again, because you might actually have to add some.
Tyre pressures - also, so important. Make sure you check them as well. And look for evidence of uneven wear on the tread face, and damage to the sidewalls. While you’re down there, see if anything’s been leaking out under the car - that's never good. Always demands investigation.
Have a look inside the bonnet - that’s a hood in the US/Canada etc. If there’s evidence of oily spray or dried coolant up there, you’d want a professional to look into that.
Flown the coup
The final thing to look into is your roadside assistance coverage now that you’re thinking of getting back on the road and out of the conspiracy-driven zombie pandemic.
You want to saddle-up, shove every second worldly possession into your family bus and head for the hills. But hold up one second, because you could be in for strife.
A lot of people get roadside assistance with their new car. It’s part of the deal. But sometimes it lapses after a year, or when the warranty dries up - whatever - and then you’re driving around unprotected.
Now, I predict there’s going to be a raft of roadside breakdowns when travel restrictions come off. So, in the spirit of Baden Powell, it’s probably a good idea to make sure you’ve got a roadside assistance solution in place, should it happen to you.
At the same time though, times are tough, and you don’t really want to pay over the odds for something you might need only occasionally. It seems to me a lot of roadside assistance providers have this 1960s, coal-fired commercial model, where you need to pay a membership fee just to join their boy band, and this seems quite expensive.
So, I went out and scoured the market for the most cost-effective roadside assistance package available.
This is Australia-specific, obviously. 24/7 Road Services Australia will hook you up with a basic roadside assist package for just $69 bucks a year - which is a massive saving compared with the NRMA or RAC-whatever. It’s just a good deal.
The $69 gets you four callouts a year, 20 kays of towing in cities and 50 in the bush - emergency fuel, a battery replacement service, flat tyres, jump-starts - all the usual stuff. The basic roadside assistance plan from the NRMA is going to be about $175, including the fee to join their boy band.
With 24/7 you can upgrade to a premium package with unlimited callouts, bigger towing limits, accommodation and ambulance cover - stuff like that - for just $121. A similar NRMA plan: More than $280, including the boy-band sign-up fee.
Full disclosure: this is not a sponsored package, but if you visit 247roadservices.com.au/autoexpert and sign up, I will earn a small commission, which seems reasonable. There’s no ‘boy band’ joining fee with 24/7, which I think you’d agree is contrary to Human Nature. See what I did there?
Up to you, obviously, but this is one kind of insurance I would not leave home without, once the zombie pandemic is something you can ponder in the rear-vision mirror. Link in the description. It’s a pretty strong saving.
