Well, I might have to wimp out if I lose the upper half of my body when i slide into the car/truck in front of me...:barf:

 

Air gun is fine for pulling the lugs off, I do it all the time, but you don't want to put them back on the same way. They'll be much harder to remove on the side of the road with just a little lug wrench, could strip the stud or lug nut, and you could help warp the hub and rotor. Just hand tighten them back on and use a torque wrench to get them to 80 in a crisscross patern.

 

or you could actually break the stud, I did this and my tire went bouncing down the road off of my lifted s-10 when I was 16. I somehow managed to break all 5 lugs.

 

Actually the Kosei K1s they tell you NOT to use an impact wrench or you will crack your wheel. I've seen one RIP Kosei K1.

 

I've used an impact wrench to put my new wheels on before. As long as the setting is down all the way it was always fine. I was able to take the lugs off easily with a tire iron too.

 

I use an impact to take off and put on all the time. Just when you put them on set your gun to the lowest setting and then use a torque wrench (I just got a new Husky one too for christmas) to get them to 80 ft/lb. I have been using torque wrenches on every set of alloy wheels I have owned and I have a bad ass 700ft/lb 1/2" drive impact. Just have to be conscious of what you are doing. Trust me, after completing a swap the last thing I wanna do is hand tighten eight lugs.

 

Yup 80ft/lbs total, in a staggered or cross pattern. Torquing the different lugs to different specs can warp rotors/wheels, and make it feel like your tires are imbalanced.

civicsiracer, the way i've always understood things, is that you want to try and torque everything once, all the way to redline, whatever, if you do a dual stage torqueing, the second time around you're measuring a bit of friction instead of true torque. yeah/nay?

-PHiZ

 

This is the way I do things:

• Make sure each lug has some anti-seize in it. I put some on every year. Makes engagement of the threads smoother.
• Put the lugs on by hand maybe 1-2 turns.
• break out the cordless drill get everything on.
• torque everything down with torque wrench to 80ft/lbs
• roll car back and forth about 3-5 times.
• retorque the lugs once more.

 

Well, can't argue with results. :thumbup:
-PHiZ