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After 4 years I guess it’s time to replace the wheel studs. I got my new bulletnose studs but I can’t remember the correct tightening process. Do you use the allen head on the end of the stud + red Loc-tite and torque to 16-20lbs or use the double nut technique + Loc-tite and torque to 55-60lbs?
Thanks for info. Happy holidays!
Keith
Not all studs have allen heads to get them in. But no matter how you get them in 20 or 22 with high temp loctite (not sure the color) should be enough.
I replaced all front studs a couple months ago. Was surprisingly difficult. Required a torch to get them out, and had to spend a lot of time chasing the threads to get the new ones in. There’s a long thread here somewhere that chronicles my hapless efforts.
I would use blue loctite. The red makes it VERY difficult to get out. I could not do it with heat and an allen head–had to use a stud extractor on the threads.
Blue + allen wrench + hand tight has worked for me.
In 4 years I’ve never had a problem with them but I guess they’ve taken a lot of beating with all the mount/unmount cycles. I was planning on using the double nut technique to remove. Not sure how a stud extractor works?
Keith
The type of loctite may depend on whether or not you feel the wheel bearings will last longer than the studs and if you want the hassle of trying to get the old studs out. I saved myself the trouble and bought new studs when I replaced the wheel bearings.
Ditto that.
We (and by we I mean John) just replaced both of the front bearings on our car and there was no way in hell we were going to the trouble of trying to remove the studs. The $ for the new studs was well worth not wasting the time and busting up your knuckles…
OriginalSterm wrote:
Absolutely replace the hubs, We replace ours every year. It gets nasty really quick when the break. I dont know that they are a know problem but its sound preventive maintenance…
ARP makes a 12/1.5mm press in stud for the metric GM cars. Available in 2.5 or 3", They have been running on my original race car for over 8 years. Hubs have to be removed and minor machine work is required, but they NEVER loosen where I always had problems with screw in studs loosening (red Loctite has a max temp of 400 degrees…you can exceed that in racing). Chuck
wow. is it just me or is this way too much torque? I use the reverse lug nut method but only torque to 16.
If you use red Locktite all that needs to be done is to fully seat the studs. Finger tight would probably work fine. Once the Locktite sets up the studs aren’t gonna move unless you exceed the MOT of the thread lock.
jlevie wrote:
If you use red Locktite all that needs to be done is to fully seat the studs. Finger tight would probably work fine. Once the Locktite sets up the studs aren’t gonna move unless you exceed the MOT of the thread lock.[/quote]
Hi temp Locktite is anaerobic. That is to say it doesn’t cure by “drying”, it cures by getting hot. So if you use the double-nut method to get the studs in, you may find that removing the nuts puts enough torque on the stud to pull it back out. Since the Locktite is uncured, if you put the stud in at 22 ft-lbs, then it will come back out at 22 ft-lbs. The Locktite won’t cure until you get it back out on the track.
And if your Locktite isn’t cured and you start swapping tires around in your garage next week, your studs might come right back out. So once you have your studs in, put on the tires that you are sure you’re going to run on your next track day.
Related issue: One of the things that I ultimately figured out is that if I’d been putting hi temp grease on the lugnuts, I wouldn’t have had a problem with my studs coming out in the first place.
Ranger wrote:
[quote]jlevie wrote:
If you use red Locktite all that needs to be done is to fully seat the studs. Finger tight would probably work fine. Once the Locktite sets up the studs aren’t gonna move unless you exceed the MOT of the thread lock.[/quote]
Hi temp Locktite is anaerobic. That is to say it doesn’t cure by “drying”, it cures by getting hot. So if you use the double-nut method to get the studs in, you may find that removing the nuts puts enough torque on the stud to pull it back out. Since the Locktite is uncured, if you put the stud in at 22 ft-lbs, then it will come back out at 22 ft-lbs. The Locktite won’t cure until you get it back out on the track.
And if your Locktite isn’t cured and you start swapping tires around in your garage next week, your studs might come right back out. So once you have your studs in, put on the tires that you are sure you’re going to run on your next track day.
Related issue: One of the things that I ultimately figured out is that if I’d been putting hi temp grease on the lugnuts, I wouldn’t have had a problem with my studs coming out in the first place.[/quote]
Dont forget that using grease on the nuts will change your torque values when you are tightening down your wheels. Be careful not to over tighten and damage your studs.
Sorry Scott, but the first sentence is correct and everything else is false.
Anaerobic thread locker cures as soon as it is deprived of oxygen (like Super Glue). I can’t say that I know how fast the cure occurs, but I do know that it is less than an hour for a good fraction of its ultimate strength. As a practical experiment, coat the threads of a bolt with Locktite and spin on a nut. Lay that down for an hour or more at room temperature and then try to remove the nut. If you don’t have to use wrenches and a lot of force to loosen the nut, your Locktite is old and not working.
If the lug nuts are galling on the studs or wheels you’ll be getting less torque on the lugs than indicated. Anti-size compound should be used on the studs and mating surface of the lug nuts to prevent galling and to allow correct torque to be reached. Unlike grease, anti-sieze compound isn’t affected by the temperatures that the wheels will see. One application is good for several weekends.
jlevie wrote:
Sorry Scott, but the first sentence is correct and everything else is false.
Anaerobic thread locker cures as soon as it is deprived of oxygen (like Super Glue). I can’t say that I know how fast the cure occurs, but I do know that it is less than an hour for a good fraction of its ultimate strength. As a practical experiment, coat the threads of a bolt with Locktite and spin on a nut. Lay that down for an hour or more at room temperature and then try to remove the nut. If you don’t have to use wrenches and a lot of force to loosen the nut, your Locktite is old and not working.
[/quote]
Usually it’s pretty safe to say “Sorry, Scott, but you are wrong”. But not this time. I looked up this whole Anaerobic Curing business. Loktite cures when there’s no O2 and it’s in contact with metal ions. Therefore I’m…uh oh. I guess I’m wrong. Well damn. I thought I had this figured out.
Here’s the background. One of the problems that I was having when I was replacing my studs is that the hi strength loktite wouldn’t cure. I even let it go a couple days and it didn’t cure for shit. The studs backed right out when I tried to remove the “double-nut”.
The threads were pretty clean too, I’d had to chase them multiple times just to get my darn studs to thread in. That’s when I noted “anaerobic curing”, and interpreted that to mean curing by heat instead of exposure to air. I figured that the reason I couldn’t get the loktite to hang on to the studs was that the loktite needed to get hot to cure. And now that theory is in tatters. Shit.
Hmm. So why do you figure I couldn’t get the loktite to hang on to the studs?
There are three reasons that I know of that will cause Locktite not to hold:
Bulk Locktite doesn’t have a lot of strength. Nor will it fully cure in bulk. The strength of the connection comes from a very thin layer of Locktite in close proximity to clean metal.
I’ll use the stuff that you can find at an auto parts house in an emergency, but I prefer to buy it from an industrial fastener supply house that turns over their stock on a regular basis. I’ve gotten the small tubes on occasion from Advance, et. al., that were bad and never hardened.
A good set of studs will have Class 2 (or something approaching Class 1) threads on the portion that receives the lug nuts and Class 3 (or better) threads on the portion that mates with the hub. A Class 3 thread approaches an interference fit and usually requires modest force to seat. A tight fitting thread on that end of the stud in conjunction with Locktite pretty much means that the stud won’t back out. Quality studs installed with fresh Locktite on oil free threads pretty much requires the application of heat and the use of a stud remover to extract. If they come out easier than that something is wrong.
It should not have been necessary to chase the threads in the hubs, unless the threads had been damaged. But it would be normal to find that it took effort to thread in the studs. Simply chasing the threads doesn’t mean that they are oil free. Spraying the threads with a degreaser (I like Acetone for this) and blowing them dry with compressed are will eliminate any oil.
jlevie wrote:
[quote]There are three reasons that I know of that will cause Locktite not to hold:
Bulk Locktite doesn’t have a lot of strength. Nor will it fully cure in bulk. The strength of the connection comes from a very thin layer of Locktite in close proximity to clean metal.
I’ll use the stuff that you can find at an auto parts house in an emergency, but I prefer to buy it from an industrial fastener supply house that turns over their stock on a regular basis. I’ve gotten the small tubes on occasion from Advance, et. al., that were bad and never hardened.
A good set of studs will have Class 2 (or something approaching Class 1) threads on the portion that receives the lug nuts and Class 3 (or better) threads on the portion that mates with the hub. A Class 3 thread approaches an interference fit and usually requires modest force to seat. A tight fitting thread on that end of the stud in conjunction with Locktite pretty much means that the stud won’t back out. Quality studs installed with fresh Locktite on oil free threads pretty much requires the application of heat and the use of a stud remover to extract. If they come out easier than that something is wrong.
It should not have been necessary to chase the threads in the hubs, unless the threads had been damaged. But it would be normal to find that it took effort to thread in the studs. Simply chasing the threads doesn’t mean that they are oil free. Spraying the threads with a degreaser (I like Acetone for this) and blowing them dry with compressed are will eliminate any oil.[/quote]
That’s good info thx.
I won’t go into all the gory details of my rediculous stud effort, but before I chased the threads a dozen times or so, ~120 ft-lbs was not enough to get the studs all the way in.
I will probably start my replacement process tommorrow. For removal of the existing studs using the double nut method, will my impact gun work best or better to use socket with breaker bar?
Is there agreement that 4 seasons on the original wheel studs )believe they were RRT’s) is enough and they should be replaced or is this more of the if it aint broke don’t fix it!
Thanks for all the valuable inputs.
Keith
I will probably start my replacement process tommorrow. For removal of the existing studs using the double nut method, will my impact gun work best or better to use socket with breaker bar?
Is there agreement that 4 seasons on the original wheel studs )believe they were RRT’s) is enough and they should be replaced or is this more of the if it aint broke don’t fix it!
Thanks for all the valuable inputs.
Keith
smithk3933 wrote:
[quote]I will probably start my replacement process tommorrow. For removal of the existing studs using the double nut method, will my impact gun work best or better to use socket with breaker bar?
Is there agreement that 4 seasons on the original wheel studs )believe they were RRT’s) is enough and they should be replaced or is this more of the if it aint broke don’t fix it!
Thanks for all the valuable inputs.
Keith[/quote]
Use a torch. If you do that, you can remove them with a socket wrench. But if the new ones don’t go in reasonably easily, don’t push your luck by applying helacious torque. Because then you’re going to have studs that still aren’t seated all the way in, but are now a bastard to remove.
The whole new studs and new hub idea has some charms.
When I installed my bulletnose studs from BimmerWorld, which I believe are ARP studs, i used high temperature Loctite 272 (red in colour) to install them using the allen key, and stuck a small piece of pipe over the end of the allen key to nip them up.
I installed mine into fresh wheel bearings whilst in a vice, so I could clean off any excess Loctite and make sure they seated properly. Once installed, they have not come out yet.
I use Loctite Silver Grade Anti-Sieze, which is available in a small lipstick style container, so you can apply & store it easily. Available at bearing shops/hardware/auto shops etc.
The only suggestion I can offer to people installing studs into old wheel bearings is to use a decent M12x1.5 tap and generous application of brake/parts or rust cleaner to get rid of the crap in the threads.