And then the wheel comes off.

those old trucks have the drum riveted to the hub, and if you put a later model wheel on it that does not have the reliefs for the rivets, you won't get the wheel tight, because it'll be resting on the rivets, not the drum.

If that's what caused it....grind the heads off the rivets

If not, and it was just loose, you just need to make sure they're tight. I've left them loose a couple times but caught it before the wheel fell off, boy did I feel stupid.

 

those old mopars with the left hand threads are looking pretty good right now aren't they?

 

had a left rear come off my brinlaws truck on freway tire went under semi, broke his fuelines,crossed hiway hit a car,no damage!never found that wheel,i drve that road everyday.my wife was dragging our arena with a mf35,both fronts broke the hubs at one time,man her eyes got big,funny as hell.

 

Corvette KOs don't need safety wire as they (at least mine do) have a roll pin to keep the spinner tight & from backing off.

 

I lost the front left going 55mph towing a trailer with my 52 ford f1 it passed me and crossed a 4 lane highway.I went into grass after grinding a flat spot on brake drum.it gave no warning.found my wheel 2 days later man found it and set it by a fence post.

Now i check them more often.Ford alum. wheel .I know another guy lost his and i thought he didnt tighten then but i tightened mine and lost it.

 

on my '64 the wheel came loose, my warning was the lugnut rolling around in the hubcap after work (was doing 70mph coming to work). I noticed that the drums are riveted to the hub in the front and the stock wheels have some pockets for them to go in. The wheels on the front didn't have them so they where tight against the rivets, over time time they wore into the wheel and the lugs then were loose. I ground off the rivets and all was good again.

 

Years ago I lost the left rear wheel at speed on the 55 Buick I had and watched it pass me. We had done a brake job on it the day before and all I can figure is that one of us didn't get the wheel tightened right.

A couple of years ago my wife lost the right front on her Caddy but I attribute that to one of the tweakers in the town she worked in at the time trying to steal the aluminum rim. The center cap was laying in the parking lot close to where she usually parked the car at work.

For years one of the local tire stores was famous for over tightening wheels on vehicles. To the point that a lot of customers when back with warped rotors and then were told that they needed a brake job. I broke the shops lug wrench in the school shop I taught in attempting to remove one wheel that they had installed one day. We had to take a 3/4 breaker bar and cheater pipe to that one to get it off.

And come to think of it I need to run by and have the tire store I go to retorque the wheels on my driver.

 

When I worked at a dealership a few years back the tire installer came to the bodyshop and replaced a wheel/tire that had just been repaired for an insurance job we were doing.
He put the lugs on and zapped them super tight with an air gun...then pulled out the torque wrench and SURPRISE...it clicked on each lug.

I asked, "WTF are you doing???"
Torquing the lugs he said.
I told him he was nuts! He had them overtight and of course the wrench would click at 100fp or whatever it was.

Couldn't get him to understand what was wrong with the way he was doing it!
It clicked....its TORQUED!

When he went back upstairs I loosened them again with a Johnson bar and retorqued them myself. They were WAY too tight!

Told the head Mechanic what he was doing and hopefully the mechanic (A good guy) straightened him out...because he sure wasn't going to listen to a dumb bodyman!!!