Old Black Chevy

Happened to find this yellow & black sticker posted inside the door of the jack compartment, on my "80. Quote: "Caution - Follow instructions for remounting aluminum wheels. Before reinstalling aluminum wheels, any buildup of corrosion products on the wheel and brake mounting surfaces should be removed by scraping and wire brushing. Installation of aluminum wheels without good metal - to - metal contact at the mounting surfaces can result in loosening of the wheel nuts which can eventually allow the wheel to come off while the vehicle is in motion causing loss of control."

I had never really taken notice of that sticker before. But when I read it I thought about the previous thread, on this subject. Just FYI stuff.

Y'all have a great day,

Old Black Chevy/Travis :flag

Summerfun

We always pay attention to stickers after the fact, don't we!! :chevy

MotorHead

That's what intructions/manuals/warning are there for....so you can go back find out what did wrong after something bad happens :lol:

OHSIXX

So, does that lead one to believe his wheel came off because the lug nuts were loose as opposed to being too tight?

BTW, this has been on my mind ever since reading the original thread. :confused:

Paul L

I haven't figured out that situation. Modest acceleration from a stop and all five studs sheared. No warning wobble of looseness!! Even over-tightening should not cause catastrophic failure of that type under mild load conditions.

Summerfun

It's unlikely that all 5 studs sheared off at one time!!

I would bet that if you go back and look at the studs, you will see one or two
with a bit of surface rust inside the sheared area....unless you put one %$#@load of power to the wheels!!

It could be a combination of overtightening and loosening....overtightening cracked one stud, over time causing forces to put pressure on the other lugs with loosening of those....that in combination with changes in temperature that in itself causes expansion and contraction of metals with further loosening of lugs.

Eventually there is enough play that rotational torque could snap another stud and then two or three could break at once.

Just an opinion.... :chevy

Paul L

I don't know. I have been driving Corvettes with alloy wheels for almost 20 years and I have never seen that type of failure. If I had I would imagine there would have been some warnings signs such as wobble. That case perplexes me!

Jughead

:lolg: :lolg: That's what I keep telling my wife.

corvtt1969

thats my corvette thats taking stage on this unfortunate accident, the facts are this: the last time i took off the wheels were about a month ago all four were takin off and reinstalled. they were tightened correctly. the wheel broke off with 5 sheared studs inside the rotor, they did not rsut thru as i can see the broken studs still in the hub. the wheels are crager alluminum wheels, there was a spacer and washers on the lug nuts as thats how i recieved the car when i bought it last september. i had no wooblyness or any signs of this problem before it happened. i hope that clarifies some of it. alot of people say they were overtightened or loose but unless they loosened some how inless then a month then i dont htink that was the case. and the studs seemed fine when the wheel was off in april. as for the status on the vette, i found a fiberglass specialist a couple of fellow corvette owners highly recommened just down the street from wehre i live. ill keep you all posted on my progress!

71coupe

When I worked at a BMW dealership they had a similar policy that all the techs were required to do.
Anytime you removed a wheel, you needed to clean up the backside of it & the face of the hub with a wire brush. Before you put the wheel on you would also apply cooper goop anti-seize to the hub & wheel.
If you didn't do this, it would corode enough that the wheel would be hard to remove later. I kept a large plastic mallet in my tool box if I needed to pound off a stuck wheel. Can't remember if any actually broke off tho.

mrvette

Sorry if I"m going over old dirt here, but I didn't follow the last thread to the end.....

I think the cause was a spacer, they are typically just a cheap casting, and are well known for problems of this nature, they tend to crush under clamping forces, work their way out, then it's over for the wheel/studs quite rapidly....
the ones I see are by MrGasket hanging in AZ etc.....junk....

the wheel adaptors that VBP sells though are a far far differant design, and much better material....

I have seem mucho damage from aluminum drums/wheels mounted in iron drums/discs....they to tend to corrode with road salts/moisture.....bad news for sure....which is one reason that decades ago, I lightly coat the innerfaces of my wheels/drums/rotors and the studs also with grease, just wheel bearing grease, not tooo sloppy, just enough to insure against corrosion...never been an issue since, been 40 years now....

GENE

Summerfun

Corvtt1969,
You need to try and figure out whether those studs broke all at once or whether one or two broke earlier than the reast!!

Examine the broken studs for signs of different ages of the breaks....a tiny bit of surface rust inside the face of the sheared off area is a tell tale sign.
Another is any sign of metal grinding on metal inside the same sheared off area. Another is to look at the wheel itself where the lugs and studs make contact with the face of the wheel....look for evidence of wear, as even 1/32"
of movement may show!!!

You had the wheels off recently....a stud could have been cracked but not broken off before that! Tightening the wheel at that time could have snapped it. You bought the car last year....the previous owner could have sideswiped a sidewalk or something.

Examine your wheels, lugs and studs closely for any evidence!!

gdh

I don't know if this applies but up here and I have read that in many parts of the states as well, kids are going around and loosening wheel nuts for the "fun" of it. We have had a number of bad accidents caused by this stupid behaviour. I put locking nuts on mine last summer after hearing of the first rash of these.

stingry

On a different car (also about 25 years old) I had all fice studs shear at the same time after a guy used a rattle gun to put the nuts back on.

When a wheel comes off it is pretty exciting, especially a front wheel!

NOW I always do them myself and use a torque wrench by hand!

KenSny

When you say there were washers, do you mean between the lug nut and the wheel (I hope) or between the wheel and the spacer (not good and would certainly cause BIG problems)?

Wheel adapters are the safest way to go, I would never use a spacer altho I know people that have, but I don't trust them.

In order for all 5 studs to break at once, there must have been a large shear force on them. Most likely they were loose. If they were over-torqued they would eventually stretch and the wheel would be loose. Tighten again-and again and pretty soon the stud would shear.....

One way to tell how long they had been loose is to look at the wheel holes. If not round.... then there's the problem, as the wheel was running loose and moving back and forth making the hole out-of-round.



[Modified by KenSny, 5:08 PM 5/17/2004]

Andrew

Just to back up what Corvtt1969 is saying, when this happened to me back in the fall/winter, all 5 studs also broke. None of them had rust showing through the rotor. I had locking lugs also. I do not have spacers and there wasn't any wobble before this happened.

What is even more interesting, this also happened to my rear passenger side????

Fevre

Believe Summerfun is not suggesting the lugs rusted through, what he saying is if they sheered at diff times the ones that sheered first would have some rust at the break and the ones that broke must recent would have less if any signs of rust. Growing up my friend's parents had a station wagon that devolped what sounded like rocks in the hubcap. His parents bugged him to pull the cap off and remove the rocks. After a couple weeks he did to find a couple of lugs had sheered. :eek:

corvtt1969

the washers were between the wheel and the lug with a spacer between the wheel and rotor.i just looked at the rotor after readingt this and they are still round not oval like you suggest they might be. still a mystery to me :confused:

OHSIXX

I would like to know "why?" :confused: