Lug Nut Concerns

GASA765 wrote:
........snip.....My concern is the only wheel that was removed was the original wheel that came off. When they were all retorqued back to 100 lbs they were all on the ground. One lug was loosened and then retorqued. And then the next one and so on and so forth. If they were tight then why are some loosening up.

:S

GASA765 wrote:
We purchased a 2008 FR Silverback 30LSA in Dec to replace our Wildcat that was totaled in an accident back in Oct. We bought new tires and put them on ourselves. Hand tightened without a torque wrench. My buddy has done this many times with his rigs and never had a problem. When we left Pahrump in Feb about 70 miles down the road I looked in my side mirror and saw our driver side front wheel come off our rig. It rolled past us into the desert. The studs had all been sheered off. Towed to a big rig repair facility and had studs for that wheel replaced. The repair facility said to tighten the lugs to at least 175 lbs. Seemed high but I trusted they new what they were talking about. A couple weeks ago I was thinking again this might be too high. I called around and found out they should only be tightened to 100 lbs. I had all 4 manually adjusted to that. A few days ago when we left to come back to Pahrump I was stopping every 50 miles or so to check the lug nuts. About half the stops I had to tighten a couple.
Is this normal? I don't ever recall having ever to do this.
What could be the cause of this? Could a bent axle be causing the studs,to heat up and loosen the lug nuts?
What's the cost of replacing axles?
Someone else thinks the lugs on the other 3 wheels might be worn and need replacing.
Any ideas?
Thanks.

Let's review the parts of your opening post highlighted above.
-First you head off into the wild blue yonder on "hand-tightened without a torque wrench" lugnuts.
-70 miles later a front wheel falls off.
- You go to professional big rig shop for repairs. They repair/install new lugnuts and tell you that proper torque for your lugnuts is 175 pounds.
- Everything is fine until a few weeks later YOU decide based on who-knows-what that 175 lbs is too high, so readjust to a hundred pounds.

Lo and behold- everything goes all to h-e-double-pitchforks again.

Call me foolish, but if I was in your shoes I'd heed the advice of the only professionals that seem to have been involved with the wheels, and torque those nuts to the recommended value. With a TORQUE Wrench.