From Spectra Products in Toronto comes the Zafety Lug Lock that aims to keep wheel fasteners properly attached. It’s not a new product but one worth a little digital ink. The basic premise is that it prevents wheel loss by securing your lug nuts to each other.

As Spectra explains it, wheel rims are designed with an optimum number of studs and nut torquing to provide a balanced load that isn’t subject to flexing. The Lug Lock was designed to ensure that wheel nuts have resistance to loosening, maintaining that balanced load on the rim. Nuts will loosen as a result of many factors, especially temperature change, wheel-end vibration, and a dirty or otherwise compromised rim surface. Rust or loose paint are enough to make a bad surface.

The Lug Lock prevents wheel loss by using the resistance between two nuts to minimize their ability to rotate and loosen. The design pairs two lug nuts together and ensures that resistance is applied continuously.

The product — a highly engineered plastic — is chemically inert and resistant to the chemicals typically found in trucking applications. Spectra says the design has been proven in independent vibration testing to retain lug nuts from rotation in operating temperatures ranging from -40°F (-40°C ) to +122°F (+50°C). It also works with wheel-end brake temperatures up to 300°F (149°C) and even when severe stop-and-go braking sends those temperatures up to 450°F (232°C).

A single nut coming loose creates an unbalanced load on the rim which may result in flexing of the steel, Spectra notes. Continuing to operate equipment in this condition creates stresses on the remaining lug nuts that they weren’t designed for. The result can be: rim flexing and wheel wobble; more unsecured nuts working loose; broken or sheared stud bolts; damage to mounting holes; and of course loss of the wheel.

Spectra says lug nuts can be torque-checked without removing the Lug Locks with no resulting damage to the product or its nut-retention capabilities.

Five sizes are available: 1-5/16 in. (33 mm) and 1-1/2 in. (38 mm) nuts on 3 1/2 in. stud centres; 1-5/16 in. (33 mm) nuts on 4 1/8 in. stud centres; and 7/8 in. (22 mm) & 1 in. (25 mm) nuts on 2 1/2 in. stud centres

Spectra notes, by the way that the installation of Lug Locks does not mean there’s no need for standard safety and maintenance procedures.