"As The Lug Nut Turns"

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(Working backwards through the V8's)

In V8 #26 Joe Cantrell comments about the horrific condition of various
cars lug nuts, their torque readings (values), and iffy to very bad
wheel studs at a recent AROO track day.

I'm not a racer and don't look like one, but...if I was a fairly serious
racer / time trialer, I'd carry spare studs and lug nuts, change the
complete set every race season, and certainly torque all lug nuts down.

Any car used in racing is going to have its wheels removed and replaced
frequently. Every time this is done, there is some stretching of the
studs and slight distortion to all threads. Add to this the extreme
stress on these items as the car is 'thrown' into corners, then
accelerated out of them and we're talking fairly significant metal
fatigue.

Most cars used in time trialing and vintage racing are modified (some
considerably more than others) street cars. They were never designed to
withstand these stressesespecially when the car (and many of its
components) might be 30 to 40 or more years old.

In V8 #24 John Justus answers my challenge as to whether anyone has ever
lost a wheel that was reasonably tightened and Not on a race car.

John says, "Shortly after I put after market wheels on my 164 in 2000,
the left front
wheel almost came off while driving to work.  I had used a torque wrench
on
all the lug nuts, and the only one that was really loose was the left
front.
The right front needed to be retorqued, but not loose.  The rears were
both
okay.

"Being rather paranoid after that, I checked the torque every other
week, and
after two weeks found the left front lug nuts had backed off a little,
not
enough to be loose, but enough that I could retorque to spec without
backing
off the nuts.  I decided that I had a little too much anti seize on the
threads, cleaned them up a little, and have had no problems in a year
and a
half."

Fred, in his subtle way, suggested to John that one should not use anti
seize on wheel studs. Brian Shorey (I'm visualizing him in the Digest
confessional with a slight tail between his legs) comments that he to
(too?) uses anti seize on his wheel studs.

Yeah, me too. Most of the cars that come in for restoration appear not
to have had their  wheels removed for decades. I wire brush the studs,
but often it is still a bit of a battle to do / undo the nuts. Anti
seize helps considerably and there is still a fair amount of friction.

I suspect this is what was lacking on John Justus's 164. I also wonder
if he used lug nuts that came with the car or ones that came with the
after market rims. After a cursory unsuccessful look for my lug nut
info, I'll simply leave it up to the experts. There are several (perhaps
many) wheel rim 'stud holes' and lug nut designs. I'm not phrasing this
well, but my point is the angle (or lack of one) on the lug nut mating
surface should coincide with the recess on the 'stud holes'. Should
there be different angles on the mating surfaces, there will be
virtually no friction at this important point and only the friction on
the threads will be holding the lug nuts onthis compounded by the use
of (apparently, originally) a good dollop of anti seize.

I'd check the angle on the mating surfaces and if not correct (don't ask
me, but should be obvious), replace the lug nutsor the rims ;o}. I'd
also listen to Fred and completely remove the anti seize, or at least
have only a smidgen on the threadsand absolutely none on the mating
surfaces.

Using my faulty memory, I'd meant to comment on two of John Hertzman's
comments. One regarded the elegance of the brass nuts, complete with the
original dyslexic threads on older Alfas: I've brush polished all
original brass nuts on the client's Giulietta spider currently in the
shop. They look absolutely correct and it's almost a shame to cover them
with hubcaps. True, somewhere along the way, the driver's side
(clockwise undo) nuts were obviously attempted to be undone
counter-clockwise, which has not helped the threads. Since this car is
not destined (to the best of my knowledge) to ever be raced / time
trialed, I believe all is okay. Very interested son of owner is a member
of the Digest and should contact me if he has a concern here.

Not directly related to the above topic but John H. also commented (as I
recall) he felt if one was to use cast rims on a '69 Spider, might not
GTA rims be a better choice?

Absolutely! The client (along with my urging) mentioned these rims as a
first choice. The only downside was he apparently expected me to search
the world over to find pristine, original, rims at very reasonable
rates. I called Sperry and they had aluminum reproductions of the rims
and consequently pushed very hard to 'source' them. To no avail. I ended
up buying five later style (actually I really like them) 5-stars,
restored them, then said to the client, "Wanna buy them?" He grimaced
(as to the asking price), then agreed.

That is when I found out the original studs were too short. Obviously
I'm an expert now. (Must I put another happy face behind that last
comment?).

To remind skimmers, I bought Brand New longer studs, and appropriate to
the 5-stars, long acorn nuts, then lost any profit on the rims when
installing the 16 new studs. A Bitch.

Biba
Irwindale, CA USA

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