wheel studs - lube? or no lube?

[80's_delirious]

As a young bloke I was told by numerous people NOT to lube wheel studs with th reasoning that lube will allow wheel nuts to work loose.

I am careful not to over tighten wheel nuts, but recently I snapped a wheel stud, and today found several wheel nuts binding on the studs and once removed, a little bit of rusty looking dust came out of the thread.

So at the moment, I am thinking it would be better to apply a little anti-seize compound rather than stress studs from undoing seized wheel nuts?

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[91Mav]

Get new studs. The old rusty ones are probably stretched from rattle guns over tightening them too.

I wouldn't use grease as it would be easy to tighten them too much. Soak em in penetrant 30 mins before taking them off the remove the rust with a wire brush.

[chunks]

I use Wurth HHS2000 (synthetic spray grease) on every set of wheel studs when I work on a vehicle.

[tweak'e]

grease them. anti seize is ok but grease is cheaper.

if you do not grease them they get rusty and the nuts will rust on.
more importantly when you put the nuts on you are tightening them up against the rust not the wheel, so the wheel comes loose as you drive down the road.

grease does not make the nuts come off, lack of tension in the stud makes them come loose.

[chunderlicious]

i use antiseize and just make sure they are torqued properly. then checked them once a week for a month to make sure they werent coming loose. now i check them once a month and havent had one come off yet.

[80's_delirious]

Cheers, will hit with a brush and use a little anti-seize.

[rockcrawler31]

As a young bloke I was told by numerous people NOT to lube wheel studs with th reasoning that lube will allow wheel nuts to work loose.

I am careful not to over tighten wheel nuts, but recently I snapped a wheel stud, and today found several wheel nuts binding on the studs and once removed, a little bit of rusty looking dust came out of the thread.

So at the moment, I am thinking it would be better to apply a little anti-seize compound rather than stress studs from undoing seized wheel nuts?

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Nickel antiseize.

40 percent of torque* applied to a fastener is lost in thread on thread friction. While the technically they're right and a fastener should really be put together with clean dry surfaces, i feel that the moisture that they're usually subjected to ends up with rust, seizing and galling on the threads along with cyclic loading so that when it comes time to take them off, that 120ft/lbs** to put them on is now 2400000000000ft/lbs to get them free.

Bingo bango sheared stud

My gut feel is that with a lubricated stud, that 40 percent then gets transferred to the mating surfaces so 120lbs is still 120lbs of torque it's just coming from another point.

I also make a point of reqtorqing 50k after removing tyres. (Ask me why i do this). Since doing this i've never lost a tyre (and i change tyres to go wheeling EVERY time i wheel)

*percentage figure comes from several fastener websites. 40 percent goes to thread surfaces, 40 to mating surfaces and about 10 percent goes somewhere else that i can't remember right now

**Random "X" figure, farked if i know what it's supposed to be

[chimpboy]

Yep anti-seize is, I think, the according-to-Hoyle way to go. I use a copper one but just because that's what was on the shelf, I have no idea what the difference between copper, nickel, etc might be.

[rockcrawler31]

For those interested

At work we have tubular drilling components made out of Monel Stainless. It's a high Nickel content stainless steel that is VERY prone to galling threads. As much or more so than aluminium threads.

Depending on the thread form they have to be hand mated, then torqued by the rig and we have to use a special thread lubricant on the smaller versions or at the very minimum, pipe dope on the larger ones.

Here's the kicker. It's actually possible to use too much lubricant or antiseize. Depending on the thread form if there's too much dope it has nowhere to go and the resulting pressure causes the threads to ramp against eachother and seize anyway.

Try undoing a 2.5ton bolt that's standing on it's end into a nut that's welded themselves together and you'll get an idea of how focked it is when it happens.

fun and games

[rockcrawler31]

Yep anti-seize is, I think, the according-to-Hoyle way to go. I use a copper one but just because that's what was on the shelf, I have no idea what the difference between copper, nickel, etc might be.

I believe the theory is that you simply have to have a metal that is DIFFERENT to the two metals being used in the fastener, and preferably SOFTER in its pure form.

For our drill pipe we use a product called copper-kote among other things. Stuff looks like chocolate when on the end of a bottle brush. I have seen a driller eat it too.

[-Scott-]

For years, I've been using engine oil on the studs - simply because it's normally the closest lubricant I can find (and I think I was shown this early in my driving career). Give the studs, wheel & hub mounting faces a good clean with a rag, smear a little engine oil on the stud (clean if available, off the dipstick if not) and tighten nuts as per normal.

I did a little research, and found some figures that suggested reducing the torque to approximately 80%.

I'm a little concerned about what might happen if they're hit too hard with a rattle gun, but in more than 20 years I've never had any problems. I also suspect a moron with a rattle gun can fark my studs whether they're lubricated or not.

Edit: Reduce torque to 80% of normal, not by 80% of normal.

[chunderlicious]

i know the torque for a landcruiser 79 series vdj (5x14mm fine thread) is 75lbft. youll be nervous when you do it for the first time as it feels like a poofter could fart tighter than your doing your wheel nuts.

[V8Patrol]

I've always used a single drop of sump oil per stud every time a
wheel is changed .... (via the dip-stick)

Something my dad always used aswell, so I just continued on with
that idea.

Never had a broken stud or stuck nut in my driving lifetime ....
(touch wood )


Kingy

[Patroler]

I just use a drop of engine oil, never had a problem, need to be careful using antisieze on threads as the specified torque may not take this into account - due to the high lubricity of antisieze you can over tension bolts/studs, there is a conversion chart for antisieze torque correction.
I know a guy who used antisieze on the threads and washers on a wr450 head, had trouble reaching the specified torque - he actually stopped before he got there, this was confirmed by a loctite rep on a recent loctite course

[RAY185]

touch wood

Get your hand off it!

Kopr-Kote FTW!

[V8Patrol]

its my hand........ I'll do what I like with it

[date]

Antiseize (copper based) is a rather dry substance. Its lubricity would not equate to the nickel based stuff which is applied via an oil based mixture. Oil (or grease is still the best medium to reduce friction.

Speaking of galling, I had a Technical Ssistant working for me some years back. We got in a new series of stainless steel pipe fittings. He screwed one lot together - hand pressure only in the office and they galled up - one fitting lost and we didn't have spares.That was only hand tightening. Naturally we used lubricant in the field, but the damned things still galled up in service - vibration is enough to do it. Stainless on stainless - nasty stuff.

[chimpboy]

Out of curiosity... do you guys really do your wheel nuts up to a specific torque setting? I would like to say I am that professional but think I would have used the torque wrench on the wheel nuts about three times in my entire life, if that. TBH I just do them up to what feels like the right level of firmness and then check them again every so often.

[V8Patrol]

For many years I (like your good self) gave em a good firm reef......

then when I was a front wheel man on a NASCAR we found that a wheel change could save nearly 2 full seconds if we ran the tension wrench over the nuts pre-race....
This setting of the tension made un-doing the nuts far easier and subsquently MUCH FASTER.... Our team held the record at the THUNDERDOME right to the very end of racing there, no-one ever even realised what we were doing to gain those 2 seconds, most people thought we had super modified rattle guns and as a result we did "loose" a couple of guns during the last couple of years ( yes they were modified but not to the point of gaining 2 seconds)

The rally car has had a couple of bad flats over the years and we always seem to get em in shyte spots, tensioned nuts just make the job a tad easier and again....... faster


yup, I tension em on every vehicle here

Kingy

[rockcrawler31]

Out of curiosity... do you guys really do your wheel nuts up to a specific torque setting? I would like to say I am that professional but think I would have used the torque wrench on the wheel nuts about three times in my entire life, if that. TBH I just do them up to what feels like the right level of firmness and then check them again every so often.

i always torque mine up to 54grunt/pounds. Using the age old method of when the pffffft valve goes off, that's tight enough.

Alternatively, when our rig guages don't work and we have to torque up the drill pipe, we use the double flinch method

When the threads ping once and you flinch away from the make up tongs you take them off and back them up for another bite.

When they ping the second time and the tongs leave gouges in the pipe and you've taken several involuntary steps backwards - yep, they're done up gooderer.

[Wozza244]

I have seen a driller eat it too.

That doesnt surprise me at all, they are a breed of their own out our way. Every shift i look at them and picture the two of them holding banjos and im extremely amused for a brief time

[chunderlicious]

I have seen a driller eat it too.

That doesnt surprise me at all, they are a breed of their own out our way. Every shift i look at them and picture the two of them holding banjos and im extremely amused for a brief time

says the bonehead....

sorry, but i agree about the drillers.

as for antisieze on head bolts..... its a smart move to not use antisieze (copper or nickel) on internal engine components. messes up oil sampling and can do damage to bearings. head bolts have a specific torque from the manufacturer and some are dry and some are lubed with engine oil. if you lube up something that is meant to be dry it wont end well and vice versa.

i do torque my wheel nuts up, however, i use my supercheap torque wrench that has never been calibrated and get thrown around... probably not very accurate.