Real 17mm hexes

[JThiessen]

Originally Posted by josh9mille

Is there a way to harden aluminum?

Yes, but you dont want to go there. Its a cold working process, where you basically pound the surface.

[mistercrash]

From this pic, which I altered a bit, it looks like those O rings go inside the nuts in a small channel that can be seen, it's where I made the red line. This is to help prevent the nut from unscrewing itself. The problem with that channel is that it take away two or three treads off the nut so it might explain why they were so easy to strip.

[JERRY2KONE]

What I would like to know is exactly how they stripped? Was it while in operation due to coming loose, or was it while you were installing/tightening the nuts? What was the real cause of this failure. I get the "O"-ring now, but kind of a weak way to atempt keeping the nut in place if you ask me. Why not just put a nut with a flange/shoulder on it, and add a serated surface to hold it in place. The only way to keep from destroying the o-ring in a threaded application is to lubricate it, and we all know that kind of defeats the purpose of using the nut in the first place, because it will surely work its way loose. I find it hard to believe that with all of the great engineering that goes into desiging these vehicles that some one cannot come up with a full proof way to keep our wheels on.

[LiqrSicc]

Thanks MC, now I see what the rubber o-rings were for. I didn't notice that at all until you pointed it out. Not too sure if it would have made a difference though.

Jerry, I took the Flux out for it's first run yesterday. Went through each wheel nut just to make sure they were nice and tight and next thing you know this one just lost all resistance. It looks like the wheel nuts held up but the actual hex adapter was the one to strip. I guess it's better that it happened before I ran it than to have a hex fall off while I'm bashing.