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Torque with wheel adapters?

nbb350

Active member
So, after working on the car I was putting the wheels back on and ran into an issue. I use EMPI 4-bolt-VW-to-5-lug-Chevy adapters at all corners. I put the wheels on, hand-installed the lug nuts until snug, torqued all the bolts to 80 ft-lbs, then went back to torque them to 100 ft-lbs (just like on my Jeeps with aluminum wheels). Well, 3 wheels torqued to 100 ft-lbs fine, but one of them had 2 bolts that torqued and 3 bolts that just kept turning - in fact, 2 of those 3 bolts got EASIER to turn. Uh-oh... I think the pressed-in studs are starting to pull out!

My guess is that 100 ft-lbs is too much torque for the pressed in studs - at least on that adapter. Maybe it's defective. Maybe that's just too much torque for EMPI and I'm lucky I didn't damage the other three... The EMPI adapters didn't come with any installation instructions, let alone torque specs!

HOW MUCH TORQUE do other people using adapters use when tightening their lug nuts?
 

Brett Proctor

Well-known member
Service manual has the wheels listed at

M12X1.5 72 ft/lb

M14X1.5 87 ft/lb

Spacer torque.jpg
 

nbb350

Active member
as expected, I'm WAY over-torqueing the nuts!! dammit...i had them at 80 before and should have left them there...
FYI, the Chevy adapters use 7/16" threads, so 70-75 was the magic number. only 33% over! lol
 
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