Always always always remember to torque your lug nuts. A few weeks ago, I installed some N50/15 pos-a-tractions on the Mav, and I was so anxious to see what it was like to lay into it without unreasonable amounts of wheelspin, I forgot to torque the lugs. I made a few 3/4 throttle passes out in the county and went home. when I got back into town, imagine my surprise when pulling up to a stoplight, there was a huge crash and I saw my left rear wheel roll past me and through the intersection. Luckily, no one (except my poor Maverick) was hurt. The tire stuffed the quarter panel back and the wheel and all the wheel studs were ruined. The worst thing is that this quarter had been massaged by a body man friend of mine and he had it straight as a pin. Sadly, it's worse than it looks in the pic. I'm thinking of replacing the quarter altogether after racing season. It's full of filler anyway.
Thats not so bad...(ok, while maybe it is but...) A few weeks ago, a friend of mine and me were out in his '67 Mustang Coupe. We just got done building a radical 347 Stroker and had to take her out to see what she'd do. Some idiot in a Mazda B2500 truck tries to race us, after the huge clouds of tire smoke were gone, we could clearly see that we'de missed our turn, in the process of pulling a "Y" turn the front passengers side wheel fell off. All 5 lugs were still tightly in place. His Spindle had snapped.
I sort of had the same thing happen to me with my 77' Maverick when it was still my everyday driver. We had just rotated the tires the day before I took it to a store 5miles away. On the way back the back of the car started to wobble and I thought I had a flat tire. As I coasted it off the road , the left side of the car just dropped. Talk about a weird feeling. The wheel had come off just as I stopped and was holding the back of the car up. Thankfully there was no damage to the quarter. I walked back down the road and picked up all the lugnuts that had spun off. They were all stripped. I'm not sure if they were over torqued or just worn out but it sure got my attention. I had to call home and have my hubby bring up a new set of lugnuts. The moral of the story: always check the condition of the lug nuts before you put them back on the wheels and torque them properly.
A long time ago a buddy and I were towing a 55 Chevy 4 door wagon to a junk yard. As we drove through a stop light we heard a noise. Some old guy drove by and announced (he had a CB radio with one of those external speakers installed behind the grill) "Say boys, your left wheel just rolled by." Fortunately, someone had installed ladder tracking bars on the 55 and the suspension was so stiff the left front end did not even such the ground. I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tighten the lugs."
