AFAIK (which is an acronym meaning somebody out there will verify that I
don't know what I am talking about :-)....
Wheel studs are not graded as such. They are designed to be what they need
to be for the car they are made for.
Nor are basic lugnuts graded, ditto lugnuts that come with aftermarket
wheels (which often also are accompanied by their own torque specs).
I have bought regular tapered lugnuts that are gold colored a la Grade 8
(although I've seen gold grade 5 fasteners too, so color is not a sure
identifier). But consider that a lugnut is twice as thick, or more, than a
regular nut of the same thread size and you can see that it is stronger. On
my Spitfire, it happens that the wheel stud thread is the same as the head
stud thread, so an old trick there is to use lugnuts for head nuts because
they can take greater torque. (head torque is ~75, while wheel torque is
only ~40). Even with Gr.8 head nuts, it is not that hard to strip one. Less
likely with lugnuts.
On my older race wheels, which have the type of shouldered and washered
lugnut that goes into the wheel, I split two of those torquing to 40 but
never had a problem after I was told that on those I should only torque to
35. On my newer Revolution wheels, same basic type of lugnut, I still torque
only to 35. Wheels haven't fallen off yet.
Most lugnut problems I've seen people have (both split nuts and snapped-off
studs) were traceable to too much torque, or improper re-torquing (torquing
without backing the nut off first).
--Rocky Entriken
----- Original Message -----
From: <MJSUKEY@cs.com>
To: <fot@autox.team.net>; <Triumphs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 12:32 PM
Subject: Bolt rating
> Are wheel studs and lug nuts grade 5 or grade 8?
>
> Thanks,
> Marty Sukey
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