Re: "As The Lug Nut Turns"

["Ferdinando Di Matteo" <aroctek@domain.elided>]

Biba, and all Digesti, I remember very clearly as a young boy some 80 years
ago and up until recent years, WHEELS had RIMS.  I have not seen a rim in
ages so am I incorrect saying no motor vehicles, cars as we know them today
do not wear RIMS?   A wheel is a wheel and NOTHING else!  Let's call parts
by their right names.  And while I'm at it, To, too, two, then, than, route,
rout, on and on poor spelling and usage of words is confusing, to say the
least.  A teacher once told us of a great train wreck caused by a written
word, in the days when trains got written messages handed to the engineer by
a long pole as they roared by  depots.  The message was, "clear on track to
Albany."   Track TWO was clear, not the one he was on.  The head on crash
resulted.  You get the point even though the actual words were not exactly
remembered by me.  Fred  Flames?

----------
>From: AlfaCyberSite <acs@domain.elided>
>To: AD <alfa-digest@domain.elided>, Jim Hart <jhart@domain.elided>,
"Shorey, Brian" <bshorey@domain.elided>, John Hertzman
<johnhertzman@domain.elided>, Ferdinando Di Matteo <aroctek@domain.elided>
>Subject: "As The Lug Nut Turns"
>Date: Thu, Sep 6, 2001, 5:30 PM
>

> (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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