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Old 12-01-2006, 02:55 AM   #13
Peloton25
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Re: Ralph Laurens F1 chassis #074?

Quote:
Originally Posted by carbuilder2002
What on earth is he doing with those horrid wheel nuts, they seem to have been modified for tying the car down. Really disgustingly ugly.
The car was shipped to Monterey without the standard "F1" wheel nuts attached so that it could be strapped down on the truck. Unfortunately it's rolling tool chest was not shipped with the car so they were unable to swap over to the proper nuts when the car came off the truck.

There is an on-board wheel nut wrench hidden under the carpet of the right-side luggage compartment in the F1, but it was not adequate for removing the travel lugs. I guess the travel lugs weren't supposed to be or are not normally put on so tight - in fact two people cautioned that the owner shouldn't have been driving the car with them on when I shared my photos, but the owner had gotten word from McLaren that it would be ok as long as they kept an eye on them.

The F1's wheel nuts are put on at something like 400 ft-lbs of torque and normally tightened on by a massively long torque wrench. Without that, you can almost forget about getting them on or off. Here's a shot of it in action on XP5 outside the old McLaren factory.



>8^)
ER
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