R500 style wheelnut failures?

[murph7355]

Asking a general query following the "For Sale" post on getting stainless nuts. I'm not in any way trying to undermine that thread or doubt what's been said there (I'm likely to buy some after all), but am just curious as a user (albeit not often at present) of these nuts...

 

Q1 - how many people have heard (first hand) of failures of these nuts?

Q2 - how many of any failures heard of are down to incorrect usage of said nuts?

 

I know that the design is, to use a phrase, pants. They're a pain in the arse to use on painted/powder coated wheels and it seems like a massive exercise in pointlessness all round to have them like they are...

 

But in over 17k miles of use, swapping wheels over quite regularly, I've not had a single failure. I *do* use a torque wrench to tighten the nuts up (55lbs ft) which I suspect might help, but would be very interested to hear from anyone who's heard of failures.

 

Also think it might be a good thing to air on this forum, as if there's potential for incorrect tightening causing failures of a pretty important part of the car, people ought to make sure they do them up properly...

 

Hoops - reading your post on the other thread it does sound like yours weren't done up properly. And if it was the stud that sheared, I wonder if that might have happened with normal wheels given the same set of circumstances...just a thought.

 

Edited to get units and numbers right. Memory's not what it was since I eased up on the drinking. My driving hasn't improved either.

 

Edited by - scuffnut on 18 Jun 2003 13:32:26

[scooby dooby doo]

I had a stud fail as described in the other thread - as I stated I'm not entirely sure why. But there was no vibration of any type and it all lasted fine for about 100 miles.

 

I've wasted large amounts of time trying to get the nuts to fit (steel nut and magnesium wheel - I think we can all guess which part is getting worn / damaged there)

 

Finally - I very much doubt you've torqued to 70 psi - torque is measured in ft lbs (or lb ft or Nm but NOT ft / lb or lb / ft). sorry to seem pedantic but getting units right is one way to make engineering type questions MUCH easier to solve as it gives you a quick check that you've done your sums right. 55 ft lbs is the normally recommended amount.

 

 

HOOPY

R706KGU Hoopylight R

[murph7355]

Hear you (and have edited the post accordingly).

 

Mine are a bugger to get in and were from day 1. I think it's more to do with the nut being spec'd too tightly to a "nude" hole size. Paint it or powder coat it, which I very much doubt lays down an even thickness of material, and you have problems.

[stevefoster]

Using longer studs a bit of the stud spline protrudes past the hub face.

This can splay out the end of the nut. I machined out the very first thread or two to prevent this.

 

One chap I know of has this problem so badly that his nuts were splayed 😳 😳 *eek*. One of them to the point of cracking across the line of thread up the nut shank. It also made the nuts very tight in the holes.

 

This is probably not an issue if the correct studs are used.

 

Check your studs and nut ends.

 

I made a new nut out of a standard size nut on my lathe in a jiffy and that worked fine. Had to machine off the end as the studs are long of course.

 

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