I guess it depends on where you look but I've mostly heard 155 pounds and I've heard this "rotor warping" comment before but never could buy into it. How can squeezing the wheel a little tighter against the hub cause the rotor to warp? There is no lever action there, it's just more direct squeezing. Any engineers out there that can agree with me? The greatest problem with over-tightening is snapping studs off at that time or with a delayed action which hopefully isn't while going down the freeway.

 

I've also heard "rotor warp" before. It may be an issue, but I believe that the real issue is stresses on the rotors, wheels, and especially lugs. As the weight of a vehicle increases, the stress on the drive train increases. Wheels present a unique problem. There can be temperature variances of several hundred degrees. The alloys and shapes of the metals involved can produce expansion issues. When the nuts are tight, the torque is across the width of the bolt (shear strength) with the wheel being held in place by the thread strength. (When one nut is lose, metal expansion will occur most at that location. That may contribute to warping.) If all of the nuts are relatively loose, the torque on the wheel (especially at startup) may cause uneven lateral pressures on the studs. Odd thing about this kind of pressure -- it's cumulative. Pull one side of the threads 1/10,000" more than the other and nothing will happen. Do that repeatedly and you'll pull the threads right off the stud.

My guess is that for most of us, torquing the lugs at 115# is fine. That's plenty to pull our 4 ton beasts and a light tow. 85# may be enough. But the guys that are really taxing their excursions with the 30' travel trailers (or similar weight) need to follow the specs and use Ford's recommended setting near 160. The stresses of pulling and stopping that much weight need to be transferred across the studs, not down the threads.

 

To the OP, Bpayton, are your rims stock or aftermarket, aluminum or steel?

 

Aftermarket aluminum Dick Cepek DC-2 wheels

 

I'm not fully educated on this but I understand our Excursions have a hub centric wheel. I did a quick check to see if the DC-2's were considered hub centric and found these footnotes in the fitment catalog, of which ** is noted in the part number for the Excursion. Are you using the Dick Cepek matched lug nuts too?

To others that know more about this stuff, could non-hub centric or the wrong lug nuts be a risk?

 

DO NOT USE ANTI SEIZE ON LUGS!

 

Without acorn nuts hub centric wheels/rings should be used. Most aftermarket wheels have hub centric rings to adapt the wheel to the vehicle. Wheels that use acorn nuts use the taper on the nuts to center them and even sometimes also use hub centric.

Personally I like acorn style wheels better, the only kind of wheels I have ever had personal problems with are the hub centric wheel setups. I also notice more reported problems with the hub centric wheels from other people then the (used since forever) acorn style.

 

Please don't do that.

85lbs is no where NEAR enough torque for an Excursion.

My F150 Lightning has torque specs of 120lbs for the lug nuts. My buddy thought it was 85lbs when he helped one day many years ago so he torqued them to 85 foot lbs. Not long after, three of the six lug nuts were discovered loose by me.

115lbs isn't enough either, for an Excursion, in my humble opinion.

Stewart

 

Thanks Stewart!!! X2

 

I agree 85 is way to low. Honda cars call for 90ft/lbs of torque.

 

Right you are.

It's strange how something that would be said in normal conversation comes out completely different when it's typed into a bulletin board. I should know better.

And as I said above, mine are at 160#.

 

Dam bass man, you screwed that up, I've never done that. Going fishing in the morning, ...................can't wait.

 

Yeah. New experience for me, too.

I want a full fishing report when you get back online. I'm heading to the river tomorrow.

 

I just fish for "put-n-take" rainbows from the bank of Lake Siskiyou and they average about 16 inches. It was so cold this morning my rod iced up and I broke a line when fish was on but ended up with a limit of 5. (I snagged one by the top fin).

 

I fried up some fish from the summer last night for the family. It was great! Not one complaint at the dinner table.