> Also, knock off's are designed so that forward motion of the car will >
tighten them, not loosen them. So when a wheel spins forward, the knock >
off will spin the opposite way. So, to take a knock off off you need to >
rotate it in the same direction as the wheel going forward.
Ray Asked:
I was with you right up to this last paragraph. Como se dice en ingles?
Jay tries again:
Isn't this one of Einstien's rules? Or, just general physics? "What is at rest, tends to stay at rest; what is in motion tends to stay in motion." When you are at a stop and then begin to accelerate, everything wants to stay where it is until it is pulled or pushed. If a ball is on the floor of the car, it will appear to roll backwards (though it is really only trying to stay where it was). This is what happens to the knock off and the wheel. When the wheel starts to spin forward, the knock off wants to stay where it was or go in the opposite direction that the wheel is spinning. Imagine the right side wheel and the knock-off spinning forward. The wheel will be spinning clockwise, and the knockoff will be trying to stay at rest, which will cause it to effectively twist or spin counter-clockwise. Now, if counter-clockwise was the direction for loosening the knock-off, as it normally would be, forward acceleration would cause the knock-off to loosen. So, they had to switch the direction of the threads on the right side of the car to prevent the knock-off from coming loose from driving forward. Therefore, to take a knock-off off, you need to hit or spin it the same direction as the wheel would go forward.
Big caveat, slowing down gives the opposite result as above and will tend to *loosen* knock-offs that are designed to tighten on acceleration. Plenty of folks will tell you that the force from braking is sharper or greater than the force of acceleration. So, the design on most if not all cars would really be wrong. Six of one, half a dozen of another.
Does that do it, Ray?
Jay
Jay S. Laifman Pircher, Nichols & Meeks 1999 Avenue of the Stars Los Angeles, California 90067 (310) 201-8915