Wheel Fell off.

[HH1]

I heard some noise heading up to Shawnee Peak to do some skiing. I felt a fibration from the wheel and it almost sounded like the wheelbearing went to hell, if i turned to the left the front end grinded and felt terrible. I told my girlfreind that it didnt feel safe and that we should not be driving it. I got out and checked the lug nuts and also looked at everything underneath the truck, everything looked fine. Only one stud from the right front broke off flush.hmm. I have the steel stamped rims that came with the truck (170,000miles). Anyway about 1week of grinding later i was traveling down Rt 202 in green maine at night at 55mph and the wheel went past us!! my supervisor from work looked out his window and said "Now that cant be good." at the shower of sparks. It looked as if we were entering the atmosphere. I gingerly applied the brake and slowly brought the truck to the side of the road. phew. I walked back and got the wheel..after inspection it appeared the bolt holes were elongated, the lug nuts were still on the studs and all the studs turned so i could not get the lugs off.hmm. I hope this dosent happen again. has anyone ever heard of this happening?

 

[01EB5.0]

It sounds like your lugs were loose for a long time. I have never heard of that happening before, but somehow your lugs were not tight. Make sure you torque them, then check them 500 miles later and retorque them. What kind of damage was there to the front axle?

 

[HH1]

well my rotor lost about 2inches from the bottom but that about it for damage. Im replacing All the wheels, both rotors, lug nuts, wheel bearings and brakes just to be sure. I checked the lug nuts they appeared to be tight. i was using a breaker bar to check them i could turn them all about a half turn.

 

[01EB5.0]

OK, well good luck and i guess it's a good thing that you stopped the explorer safly and that all that was damaged was the rotor.

 

[HH1]

Come to think of it...The week before i went skiing i went upto my brothers house and we changed the drivers side radius arm bushing. I thought we were going to change both so I broke all the lugnuts free on the left/pax side as well. So you are right, thats what happened, the lug nuts were loose and elongated the wheel holes enough so that the wheel slipped right by the lugnuts.
A chevy wheel would have flown off when i was navagating all those tight corners by the lake? Devine itervention?
I love fords!

 

[01EB5.0]

Good lock getting it repaired. You could just stick the spare wheel on there if you don't want to buy a new one or whatever.

 

[espnfreak]

wow, thats crazy! I had my hood open up while i was doin 50 mph. glad your safe!

 

[Rick]

When lug nuts have been hammered on mumerous times with an impact the holes in the wheels can get rounded out. It would take an awful lot to do that to the extent that yours was though.

 

[jimbo74]

Originally posted by espnfreak
wow, thats crazy! I had my hood open up while i was doin 50 mph. glad your safe!

hehe...i was doing 60 when my hood flew up..... also glad that you are safe... most idiots driving an suv would have rolled it... and that was with just a tire missing not the rim like yours.....

 

[espnfreak]

Sweet! I'm not the only one who forgets to close the hood. Now its got this safety catch it didnt have before.

 

[jimbo74]

Originally posted by espnfreak
Sweet! I'm not the only one who forgets to close the hood. Now its got this safety catch it didnt have before.

dont get too excited... i do a lot of things out of stupidity or lack of knowledge to the contrary.... i had forgoten that i hooked up my charger..and it ripped out the cord and all....local trip to the hardware store and the charger got fixed though

 

[towdriverb]

have 4 15 " steel rims i just removed from a 96 explorer 4x4 good shape even have lug nuts for them make offer if interested

 

[HH1]

Tow,

Yes I would like to buy those wheels from you, if you want to part with your steel stampers for like $100 that would be a deal! Are you in mass? If so im only like 3hrs away in maine. ill have to swindle my brother into a road trip.hehe

 

[towdriverb]

sure i will let them go for that. e mail me at Towdriverb@aol.com and we will set up a meeting

 

[HH1]

Great!
Thanks for all the help guys.

 

[TunnelFear]

i just got my 15X8 rock crawlers less then 2 months ago, and they already have elongated themselves enough where i ended up snapping 4 wheel studs off last nite while driving home to work...very scary...luckily nothing bad happened..just pulled over and got it towed. anyone think the rim couldve been bad from the start? or something?

 

[Mbrooks420]

Anyway about 1week of grinding later i was traveling down Rt 202 in green maine at night at 55mph

How come you didn't have it checked out? A day of wheel grinding my truck would have been in the shop. Well no, I would have checked the lugs. You're just lucky you didn't loose control and kill somebody.

I told my girlfreind that it didnt feel safe and that we should not be driving it.

So you see that a stud is gone and then say it isn't safe, don't check anything til a wheel falls off. Johnson and flick put tires on my truck and didn't tighten one of my back wheels. The sound it made was so bad I don't know how anyone could drive on it.

 

[HH1]

this is my first 4x4 so i thought maybe something was wrong with the axles or gearbox or something else....if I thought the wheel was going to fall off, I would'nt have driven it.

Since then ive purchased the 15x8 AE Nitro's. And on 11/15/02 I ordered the 31x10.5x15's MT Baja Claw tires and a PA 3" Lift. This website is makeing me do it...muhahahaa Oh yes I will be able to climb Streaked Mtn when im done with it.

Now on to reading more about the TT shackles and stuff.

 

[01EB5.0]

Originally posted by HH1


Now on to reading more about the TT shackles and stuff.

Your 92 does does not have torsion bars so you can not do a TT. You could do schakles in the rear and a spacer up front though for a mild lift.

 

[HH1]

TT= Torsion Twist- Gotch ya.
Yes, Im almost certian that i will do the spacer and shackles. what brand? also Im concered with tippyness, is this a problem with the narrow wheelbase?