Quick warning. If your car has alloy wheels and a steel 'emergency wheel', DON'T USE THE ALLOY WHEEL'S BOLTS TO FIT THE EMERGENCY WHEEL. What usually happens is they are so long they go right through the hubs and interfere with the brakes. There shoud be a special set of bolts for the steel emergency wheel. The best thing to do with them is tape them onto the emergency wheel as a reminder.
HJ
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Found this in the cellar earlier - looking for something else, seems like good advice.
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No probs with Vauxhall. Can use same wheel bolts for the alloys or steelies.
Pretty sure reference was once made on here about the Merc A class having different bolts for the space saving pram wheel though.
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Certainly a 2000 E-class has this problem.
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I have always thought that wheel bolts were a daft idea only used by Peugeots and Renaults. Most cars have wheel studs and nuts. The couple of times I have changed wheels on cars with bolts, it's been a major exercise lining up the wheel with the holes to put the bolts in. With studs, the wheel is easily located, and the nuts easily fitted. In addition, if the nut is stripped but the stud is undamaged, the nut alone can be replaced. If the stud is damaged then that can be replaced also as they are a spline fit in the hub. If the thread for a wheel bolt in the hub is damaged, that means a whole new hub. Some things, you wonder if the design was ever seen by anyone sensible who could just say, "Oy! NO!". Instead, there was probably a 'Gallic shrug'.
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Universal though now (I must check the Landie's tomorrow, I can;t remember whether they're studs or not.)
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Found this in the cellar earlier
For a minute I thought this thread was by an imposter as Honestjohn does not spell his name "honestjohn". Looking at the date of the original thread, it then became apparent what you meant by "cellar" .
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Sorry my little joke...you should see the dust in there. It is a genuine HJ post though.
Edited by Pugugly {P} on 04/11/2007 at 23:05
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I have always thought that wheel bolts were a daft idea....
It's very easy to get round this problem - make up a tool, by cutting an appropriate thread on the end of a piece of reasonably sized round bar that'a say 6 inches long. Then, lining wheels up is easy.
However, I think wheel bolts rather than studs is actually excellent design. The female threads in the hub are standard, and so cheap and quick and easy to machine. The only bespoke part is the wheel bolt, which may be forged and the thread rolled relatively cheaply.
Contrast this with wheel studs. The splines in the hub require a broaching operation. The studs are more difficult to make than the bolts, again, because of the splines. The nut is also a bespoke item. Studs as a solution are expensive and offer at most a marginal benefit to a few people.
For most people most of the time, whether their wheels are held on by bolts or studs is of no matter, and IMO, anyone sensible at a manufacturer looking over the design would opt for bolts.
The number of hubs replaced because of badly threading of wheel bolts must be a truly tiny number each year - definitely not a big enough problem to push the design away from bolts.
Any fool can make a part for a pound - it takes an engineer to make it for a shilling!
Number_Cruncher
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Contrast this with wheel studs. The splines in the hub require a broaching operation. The studs are more difficult to make than the bolts again because of the splines.
Hang on, that's not a stud.
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>>Hang on, that's not a stud.
Not in the usual sense, but wheel studs do tend to be splined and have a mushroom head rather than being threaded at both ends. As ever, there are exceptions, and some older British trucks did use studs which were screwed into the hubs and further secured by a locknut behind - but, I've never seen this kind of stud on a car.
Number_Cruncher
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It's very easy to get round this problem - make up a tool by cutting an appropriate thread on the end of a piece of reasonably sized round bar that'a say 6 inches long.
Alternatively cut the head off a 6" long bolt ~ a lot easier than obtaining a piece of round bar and cutting a thread on it. All I need to do now is identify my car's thread and find a bolt.
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L\'escargot.
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Any fool can make a part for a pound - it takes an engineer to make it for a shilling!
........ or an even more up-to-date engineer to make one for 5p. ;-)
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L\'escargot.
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Does not apply to Ford;all drivers should read the handbook for their own car to see if it applies to their make.
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It's very easy to get round this problem - make up a tool by cutting an appropriate thread on the end of a piece of reasonably sized round bar that'a say 6 inches long. Then lining wheels up is easy.
My Alfa actually has such a 'lining-up' bar in it's toolkit (and it took me ages to work out what it was!). Possibly worth people's while to check the kit that came with their car before starting to fashion their own.
Oh, and I think HJ's original post is not truly accurate. It would be more correct to tell people to make sure they're aware of whether their particular car's spacesaver uses different sized bolts, and in this case to keep them with it.
I think there are plenty of cars which do use the same size bolt for the space saver too.
Edited by BazzaBear {P} on 05/11/2007 at 09:17
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