Lug Nut Limbo and Mindless Idolatry

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Brian Shorey is certainly correct that the core rationale for directional nuts
was (and in some cases still is) the reduction of unwanted unscrewing in
service. Whether that was actually a real danger in the case of Alfa's lugnuts
prior to 1972 was evidently doubted by the engineers who abandoned the
'filletatura sinistra' lugnuts with the introduction of the 1972 cars.

 A more subtle possible rationale is that in days of yore the wheelmen were
less specialized than Will Owen's "nice-enough-but-not-Mensa-material guys at
the local tire store" have been in the recent past. For Brian's reason there
has always been, and I believe still is, a difference between the Offside Undo
and Nearside Undo on the knockoffs for centerlock wheels, and the same
difference also operated for spindle nuts. Still does, doesn't it? If the same
person was adjusting wheel bearings, swinging copper hammers at the wire
wheels, and wielding the manual lugwrench it could be less confusing in the
pits if all offsides and all nearsides were consistent.

 I believe that Biba is correct that the longer 1972-and-later wheel studs are
necessary if installing 1972-and-later alloys on 1971-or-earlier cars. This
does not seem to be the case if installing 1971 or earlier alloy wheels on
1971 or earlier cars. The 1750 parts book says that the then-optional Fergat
alloys used the same studs as the steel wheels (and the GTA alloys) did and
used the same nuts as the GTA alloys; the wheels and nuts would have been
engineered as a matched system. I have never seen a set of the Fergats in this
country, and not many in Europe; Alfas, like most cars, normally had steel
wheels back then. I wouldn't be puritanical about alloys on a Duetto, but I
would still think that Biba's five-stars on a roundtail would be an
anachronism on the YMMV fringes. If one had been seriously competing in a
Spider in the sixties one might have run GTA alloys or Giulia TI Super alloys,
and I might tilt that way if aiming to recreate a hypothetical ultimate
sixties Spider, but the steel wheels and standard hubcaps would be more
in-character for a fine-but-not-pretentious car.

 Will Owen's idea of retrofitting the '72-and-later studs "Not so much to
accommodate fancy alloy wheels, mind you, as simply to rid yourself once and
for all of a big fat PITA. That would be, specifically, the wronghanded
threads on one side of the car" seems extravagant, as one could save time,
work, and money (as well as visual originality) by simply replacing the
wronghanded studs and nuts on one side with a set of the other kind made for
the other side. Neither the concours judge nor the lout with the impact-wrench
at the tire store would know the difference.

 Will writes "Okay - IF you're restoring this machine to better-than-showroom
condition as a concours queen, and if the utter anal uptight last squeaky
morsel of authenticity is your thing, baby, then just forget I even brought it
up. But if said car is to be used in a regular kind of way on a more or less
daily basis, and if there's a real possibility that you might need to hand it
off to the nice-enough-but-not-Mensa-material guys at the local tire store now
and then, or even have to replace a wheel yourself in the dark and the rain
when ONE MORE DAMN THING will have your blood pressure past redline, just
change'em. No matter what you hear or read, there never was any really good
reason to make them that way, and insisting that there MUST have been or else
Alfa Romeo (quick genuflection towards Milano) wouldn't have done it is simple
mindless idolatry."

 Okay, I will admit that there is a residue of mindless idolatry lurking in my
psyche. It dates back to 1956, in the hole-in-the-wall storefront showroom of
Goan's Foreign Cars in Kansas City, with a Giulietta Veloce sitting between an
Austin-Healey 100 and a Triumph, alloy block between two irons, Webers between
the SUs, twincams between the rockers pushrods and singlesidecams, five main
bearings between tractorish utilitarian threes, four-speed box against
three-plus-Laycock, Pininfarina's voluptuous shell between two degrees of
relative crudeness, on and on past the left- and right-handed helical finned
drums (and alloy shoes!) to the minute detail of bronze lugnuts with left- and
right-hand threads. It was a small car, almost a miniature in a world of
Jaguars and Corvettes, unpretentious against the sumptuous 300 SL Roadster in
the uptown showroom, but it seemed someone had been irrationally resolute in
the pursuit of doing simple and modest things extremely well without
compromise. OF COURSE it wasn't that good, there were feet of clay, things
that didn't work, but there were aspirations represented which made a profound
impression on some.

 Of course that set one up for the first yes-but-is-it-a-real-Alfa question a
few years later, with the first mundane steel lugnuts, then disk brakes, down
slippery slopes while some other cars got better and better and many of the
others just disappeared. MG? Who makes that? In 1972 the handed threads went
the way of the wrinkle finish on the camcovers. Who needs it? For a car to be
used in a regular kind of way on a more or less daily basis, and if there's a
real possibility that you might need to hand it off to the
nice-enough-but-not-Mensa-material guys at the local tire store now and then,
a Camry will do, or a Fiat if it is as reliable as a Camry, and if it sounds
like - -

 Enough. The bronze lugnuts with left and right hand threads have a certain je
ne sais quoi for some who were once susceptible. I'll leave it at that. YMMV.

 Cheers,

John H.

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