The following is not an endorsement for a particular brand but for the concept of the item. While fortunately my trip across Aus. was completely trouble free in bringing Suz home it could have been completely different.
When I decided to change the wheels and tyres on my truck I of course had to remove the old ones! Never having had to do my own maintenance on trucks before I am beginning to appreciate just what is involved. Having also been for a few gentle test drives on local forest trails I am also becoming apprehensive about what will be involved in freeing an 11T truck from being bogged or stuck somewhere without outside assistance. It is making me very cautious at the moment.
However to continue:
When I came to undo the nuts holding the wheels on I optimistically selected the spanner and wheel brace supplied and entered into the task. Some hour later with an extension bar of approximately two metres and two people literally jumping on the end of it - I had not even loosened one nut. I dread to think what would have happened with a puncture crossing the Nullabor.
Eventually I had to drive to the local truck depot and borrow a very large impact driver to "rattle off" all the nuts and then do them up again. I don't think they had been off since new and some minor corrosion had frozen them in place. An hour or so cleaning and polishing and some anti-seize and all was well and good.
The other item which caused some concern was when I helped the local depot fit the tyres to the new rims. We did this all with hand tools so that I would learn both "how" and in fact that it "could be" done in an emergency. When inflating the tyres to the recommended pressures for the load to be carried (at the moment they are running at reduced pressure as I am not carrying any load and they would be impossibly hard at full pressure) it was discovered that their compressor would not fully inflate the tyres to their 820 kpa. for full load. (These tyres actually have greater load and speed capability than the original duals!)
I was already intending to fit a fairly substantial compressor to the vehicle to assist is various tasks ( tyre inflation after travelling over 4WD tracks and I love air-spanners and pressure washers etc..) but these experiences were causing me to reassess my ideas of what was required!
Then I found this item:
It's called a torque multiplier (and I hope it's use is obvious). This one multiplies approx. 70 times. So fitted to the wheel nuts - turning the handle is "childs play"! I have tried it on my truck and it's a breeze (despite being another very low quality Chinese import it does work) and about 20% of the cost of the big, heavy expensive impact driver I was preparing to purchase and carry.
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