BT50 and Ranger wheel nuts

chartrock

Forum Patriarch
Staff member
Sep 26, 2010
6,127
7,392
113
Gold Coast Hinterland
Decided yesterday to rotate my tyres from to back and reverse. I managed to get the wheel nuts off with a bit of mucking around with different sockets, swapped wheels on one side and then tried to tighten the nuts. No way was I able to fit a socket that would tighten them. Looking at them showed all had rounded the edges. New nuts were required so calls to Repco, Supercheap etc came up with no results except advice to try a type place as they change wheel nuts often. Sure enough, my regular tyre place, Jax, had them at $3 each. I asked if they were genuine as I did not want them and was told it would cost me $500 for a set of genuine nuts. So $72 and another 2 hours later and a lot more descriptive adjectives of Mazda and Ford, I had all wheels rotated and 6 new solid nuts per wheel. I had to hammer a socket onto every nut to get it to bight enough to turn off.

The original nuts are a plain steel nut with a stainless steel cover which is what gives up under loosening and tightening. I cut one open to see.
56FB09C4-A516-42FC-B901-F2023F1A6D82.jpeg
Here are a couple more pics of the other nuts. I am just glad it did not happen on the open road as there is no way I could have tightened the nuts if I had to change a wheel.
8CA694AE-FC50-42CA-B97E-833EEB6EE61D.jpeg CF26413A-B7E9-41E9-A00E-8325953EB50B.jpeg
 
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Reactions: Drover

Drover

Well-Known Member
Nov 7, 2013
12,723
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QLD
The wheel braces with a bendy arm chew nuts, I have 2 cross braces one in imperial and one in metric along with some tension wrench sockets to sort the little mongrels out.....of course steel rims and alloys have their own type of nuts also....
I certainly know what ypuve gone thru...

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Brente1982

Active Member
Oct 7, 2019
281
183
43
Epping
Chrome Vanadium Sockets have too much flex in them and will invariably round nuts like no tomorrow. I work with sockets all day every day at work, and the chrome vanadium socket will chew the crap out of nuts on fittings i work with.
By far the best sockets to use are Chrome Molybdenum Steel ones. They're hardened and are designed for use on high torque impact drivers, like what you would see used at nascar when changing wheels during a pit stop.