Torque wrench
Hi I was at a port in France with my twin axle caravan and there was other caravans waiting to check in a British caravan parked up then took out a torque wrench and checked all caravan wheel nuts
never seen anyone do that. Google search says that should check them every 500 to 1000 miles
do caravan people do that?
john
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We check ours before each trip and even after each annual service the mobile engineer will get us to watch him torque the wheel nuts and get us to sign the service sheet to say we have witnessed it.
https://www.caravanwise.co.uk/caravan-tips/wheelnuts.html
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Yes they do because they come loose, and fall off.
The technology of the caravan wheel hub and mounting is not exactly fit for purpose.
I at least go around the nuts when I run up the steadies to make sure none are loose.
Imagine being told you needed to tighten your new car wheels every 500 miles, you would walk away, but this is caravan world where fit for purpose is only an aspiration.
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Always take my talk wench with me, she just won't stay at home
Seriously though!! I do check my caravan wheel nuts before every trip, It doesn't take long but I must admit, I have never found one loose.
Strangely, I wouldn't consider checking the car wheels except a few hundred miles after a wheel has been re-fitted and yet they all look very similar technology to me.
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Owned this caravan 8 years and can honestly say never thought about wheels coming loose, why would,d you?
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This topic was covered extensively just before lock-down. Whether a search will find it or not I hate to have to guess.
As I recall, the main points were that forever checking will cause the fixing to over tighten, and that the plastic slip-on indicator caps were a far more sensible idea.
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Chassis service done in February of this year, he wanted me to watch the torqueing and advised a recheck after we had done some miles. Did this and then pushed on the indicator caps, a quick glance throughout the year is then good enough for me.
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"As I recall, the main points were that forever checking will cause the fixing to over tighten, and that the plastic slip-on indicator caps were a far more sensible idea."
Checking with a torque wrench of course only confirms that the bolts are tight to a minimum setting so I always start by setting them myself with my torque wrench and no! my wrench is not calibrated but uniformity is probably more useful then accuracy.
I do not believe that checking the Torque of a bolt with a "click" type torque wrench leads to over tightening the click action gives a very clear stopping point, of course you can carry on pushing after the click, any tool can be misused. I have never used the electronic "beep" version I imagine it could be more difficult to work out when to stop pushing without any mechanical feedback.
The slip on indicators need to be pointing at some reference point (towards the rim or the hub perhaps) to be useful and this leads to bolts being given extra turn (torque) to line up the arrows, also if you get to the point where you can see that the arrow has moved you are surely well on the way to a very loose bolt.
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All my caravans have had the wheel bolt torques setting on the plate by the door along with weights and tyre pressure, my Elddis is 130Nm.
I would still maintain that if you don't move the bolt head you can not be changing the torque or stretching the bolt. Pulling a torque wrench set to the desired value (and not beyond) will not change the torque (unless it was loose) or stretch the bolt
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The slip on indicators need to be pointing at some reference point . . . to be useful and this leads to bolts being given extra turn (torque) to line up the arrows,
No. I don't think any of them are used that way. Once the bolts/nuts are at correct torque then the indicator are fitted pointing wherever the fitter wants to point them. As well as inwards and outwards, I've seen them pointing to adjacent indicator. The indicators have multiple positions, not just six.
And it would not be possible to tighten nuts/bolts with the indicators in place as an oversize socket would be needed, which would destroy the plastic indicator anyway.
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My Bailey is 130 Nm. I check mine before each trip. If we are going on a long journey, say to Italy, I also check them before return trip. Iamman, when you get your Torque Wrench don't forget you need to untorque (?) it when not in use.
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Never!, Car nor Caravan not even 200 miles after re-fitting following puncture repair or new tyre.
But, once you hear stories of it being a problem it is so easy to do, it adds that little extra peace of mind.
I use the word stories above quite deliberately because I sometimes wonder if the fanatics of this world think of something that could be a problem and then turn it into fact with invented tales of lost wheels.
It also makes me think back to my youth, running old bangers I didn't ever have a clue what the torque setting should be and standing on the octopuss wrench was the way of setting wheel nuts (in the good old days when they were nuts and you could put a wheel on the studs without suspending it in free space).
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@Stephen P ... (in the good old days when they were nuts and you could put a wheel on the studs without suspending it in free space).
I find the trick is to jack the car just enough so that the hub is on a level with the centre of the wheel, you're just leaning the wheel against the hub then rather than trying to lift it. Also, my car came with a screw in 'peg' that is intended to align the bolt holes. something like these (not that I've used it
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Through private enterprise there is an allignment system available for Land Rovers that consists of two "pegs" - one short and one long. Once the wheel is alligned onto the longer peg it can be spun round and slid onto the shorter as well. Then easy to fit three bolts before removing the pegs
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I looked this up after a similar thread and there is an extensive paper on this funded by the insurance companies after wheels falling off was the second highest (by some margin) cause of total loss of a caravan whilst mobile after RTA.
There are many factors identified and I cant find the original paper but if you read the link it gives a reasonable appraisal of the situation.
https://www.caravanguard.co.uk/news/wsl-safety-bolts-solution-by-name-solution-by-nature-4906/
The issue mainly that the caravan wheel mounting has not evolved from ancient technology. It would cost next to nothing to improve the bolts but the defense to that is that if you use the specified torque they will not fail.
Buy and use a torque wrench.
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Sorry, Phishing, that link is just an advertisment. It contains a number of "statements" that I would challenge.
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Because cars have well designed wheel fixings, caravans do not.
Cars tend to use bolts onto a fixed stud that are longer than caravan bolts giving a far better stretch property. They are usually flat not conical at the point of clamping giving a far higher surface area at the point of load transfer. They tend to have a large PCD giving a bigger clamping surface area.
And the main 'logical reason' is the caravan builder, the chassis manufacturer, and many other sources of information tell you this is essential.
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Usually flat & not conical? The last car wheel nut I saw that was flat seated was on a 10" (proper) Mini alloy wheel from the 60s. All my car wheel hubs have had a centre locating boss which is missing on a caravan ie it's the bolts' taper seat that centre the wheels on the hub & not the locating boss like on a car. And I don't follow/understand your point re the length of a car wheel bolt compared with a caravan wheel bolt .... 🤔
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After having to replace a damaged wheel on the caravan as a result of a blowout and not having a caravan dealer nearby, I took the wheel to a local tyre shop. They took one look at it and pointed out to me that it had a VW part number stamped on it (despite the fact that it was the original wheel supplied with the caravan from new). A visit to the next VW dealer identified it as being the identical with that of a VW Caddy. So much for differences between cars and caravans.
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As I said it is the wheel fixing that matters. The wheel is fairly irrelevant. Caravan hubs and car hubs are totally different animals. Take into consideration the vibration of the wheel due to the ridiculous tyre pressures now run on caravans, the horse and cart suspension, the huge loading, and the usually unbalanced wheels and you reach a point where the elastic deformation of the bolts is exceeded. This occurs far earlier than it would on any car. Now add a sprinkling of caravanner with a wheelbrace to squeeze the life out of the bolts and you will have a wheel detachment in no time.
This is why the caravan builder, the chassis manufacturer, and many other sources of information tell you it is essential to torque your wheel regularly.
It is totally up you if you observe this.
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The loads imposed on a caravan wheel are no different to those experienced by a light commercial vehicle such as the VW Caddy. People didn't regularly check wheel torques on their cars when 'horse and cart' suspension was state of the art and hubs were much the same as they still are on caravans.
The arguments that you have brought forward apply in principle to all caravans of whatever make and yet in over 30 years of caravanning I have never come across loose bolts on any of the caravans that I have owned and they all had basically the same hub and wheel configuration. The problem of loose bolts appears to be limited to one or two makes, except maybe for isolated instances where they weren't tight in the first place.
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