Wheel stuck on hub: help.
Discussion
)CrutyRammers said:
Capt. Muppet!People very infrequently die from not understanding how bolted joints work.
But it's all down to friction and clamp load, especially in the case of drive and breaking torque loads (in which the central spigot really can't be argued to do anything at all, even when there is one). Greasing the faces can reduce the friction a huge amount (I can't be arsed looking up the numbers again - over 30%) and personally I'd rather save my safety factor in case something unpredictable happens, rather than use a chunk of it up to make removing a wheel even easier.
A threaded bolt in shear with cyclical loading is a fatigue failure waiting to happen. Plus if they were loaded in shear you'd hear them make a click noise every time you accelerated or slowed down and the clearance was taken up - you don't hear the noise because something else is stopping the joint move.
The practice of greasing the hubs has come about to make it easier to remove a wheel, and it's done not by the OEMs (who crave not being sued) but by some of the people who do the servicing (who want an easy life).
It isn't best practice but pretty much no one* dies, not until the quest for CO2 reduction leads to optimised hub designs anyway, which I hope will have massive warning labels on them.
* no one has any data on this, obviously, but no one on this thread has died or even knows of someone somewhere who had a wheel fall off, not even the ones who do the thing with added risk in order to save themselves maybe having to drive a few feet to free a wheel off because they think that is harder than constantly applying grease to things that don't need greasing.
Also you can make a wheel puller out of a bit of bar with a threaded hole, a long bolt and a couple of G-clamps.
You'll have to remove the wheel centre cap. Clamp the bar to the wheel, screw in the bolt through the centre of the wheel against the hub and the wheel gets jacked off.
I've only had to do it once - on an '86 RX7 where the aluminium hub spigot had been deformed by hammering and effectively riveted the wheel on. It's one of the reasons why aluminium hubs are so rare.
You'll have to remove the wheel centre cap. Clamp the bar to the wheel, screw in the bolt through the centre of the wheel against the hub and the wheel gets jacked off.
I've only had to do it once - on an '86 RX7 where the aluminium hub spigot had been deformed by hammering and effectively riveted the wheel on. It's one of the reasons why aluminium hubs are so rare.
Captain Muppet said:
CrutyRammers said:
Capt. Muppet!People very infrequently die from not understanding how bolted joints work.
But it's all down to friction and clamp load, especially in the case of drive and breaking torque loads (in which the central spigot really can't be argued to do anything at all, even when there is one). Greasing the faces can reduce the friction a huge amount (I can't be arsed looking up the numbers again - over 30%) and personally I'd rather save my safety factor in case something unpredictable happens, rather than use a chunk of it up to make removing a wheel even easier.
A threaded bolt in shear with cyclical loading is a fatigue failure waiting to happen. Plus if they were loaded in shear you'd hear them make a click noise every time you accelerated or slowed down and the clearance was taken up - you don't hear the noise because something else is stopping the joint move.
The practice of greasing the hubs has come about to make it easier to remove a wheel, and it's done not by the OEMs (who crave not being sued) but by some of the people who do the servicing (who want an easy life).
It isn't best practice but pretty much no one* dies, not until the quest for CO2 reduction leads to optimised hub designs anyway, which I hope will have massive warning labels on them.
* no one has any data on this, obviously, but no one on this thread has died or even knows of someone somewhere who had a wheel fall off, not even the ones who do the thing with added risk in order to save themselves maybe having to drive a few feet to free a wheel off because they think that is harder than constantly applying grease to things that don't need greasing.
Personally I don't have any issue with people lubricating with copper grease or similar the central spigot as that does very little. The threads clean, undamaged and lightly oiled as previously discussed, but mating surfaces definitely not greased. Clean them obviously, but if the wheels are removed a couple of times a year should be Ok imo.
Captain Muppet said:
The practice of greasing the hubs has come about to make it easier to remove a wheel, and it's done not by the OEMs (who crave not being sued)
ITYM "crave saving every last penny/cent/yen possible and don't give a toss about what happens once the warranty expires"Captain Muppet said:
but by some of the people who do the servicing (who want an easy life).
ITYM "have to deal with the consequences"CraigyMc said:
I always put copper grease between them whenever I put wheels on, so I've not run into a situation where I really cannot get the wheel off before.
So you slap a load of grease on and then the wheel won't come off. Why won't it come off? How does the wheel bond to the car?Since I've had this one ( first with alloys,so never had this problem in over 46 years on the road ) IO've carried a wooden mallet.Jack up car to get wheel off ground, slacken wheelnuts and thump at bottom of wheel. rotate wheel and bash again. Sometimes wheel will come away and move back on when wheel rotated. I find a small wedge between inside of wheel and hub stops this. As for wheels holding on to hubs with no wheel nuts -anyone remember the vans of the late 60's ,where the spare was held under the rear end ( much as is done on modern Transits). Standard instruction on our fleet was that if the spare was not kept in a plastic bag when not n use, the nut holes should be properly cleaned of road dirt ,nuts tightened and vehicle driven carefully at no more than 20 to garage. Reason was that dirt gathered in wheel nut holes, did not loosen when wheel tightened, but the dirt disintegrated as the wheel moved, leading to nuts falling out. Titter ye not- it happened to a mate. Not a small bloke, he stood on the vehicle wheel brace( to tighten nuts) and headed back. En route he saw a wheel pass him by and wondered who's it could be ,till the van heeled over.
silentbrown said:
The OP said:
I always put copper grease between them whenever I put wheels on, so I've not run into a situation where I really cannot get the wheel off before.
blearyeyedboy said:
When you get the wheels off, put some copper grease between the wheel and the hub before you put them back on. Then the next time won't be as much of a sod.
Wake up at the back, there!TA14 said:
CraigyMc said:
Update:
Hooray! Rubber mallet also useful for parking wardens.- Op was not crushed by car.
- All wheels now swapped over for winter ones.
- Rubber mallet purchased, this solved the problem.
Did you use copper grease this time?
Can I just add to this thread that this problem is more widespread than you would think, and tends to affect users with alloy wheels which kind of corrode and attach themselves to the hub if not removed on a regular basis.
I say this from experience...
Many years ago I owned a 4.6 HSE Range Rover and had it serviced as per the service manual by the main Range Rover dealerships in Nottingham and Sheffield. One particular occasion after visiting a customer I was advised that my front tyre had a slow puncture, as luck would have it there was a tyre centre literally across the road, so I drove over to them to repair the puncture before more damage was caused. The tyre fitter jacked the car up, whipped the wheel nuts off, then burst out laughing. I asked him what the problem was and he informed me that the wheel had literally seized onto the centre hub so it was fortunate that the puncture had occurred where it did instead of on a country lane in the middle of nowhere. When I explained that it had only recently had a main service he suggested that the wheels had certainly not been removed in the service. He then went off to look for a suitable device to remove the wheel and returned with a long 100mm x100mm wooden post. After much grunting and groaning the wheel finally came free and the tyre was repaired.
Well at this point I wasn't happy because the authorised Range Rover main dealer in Nottingham had charged me approx £760 for this service. When I phoned the dealer up they finally admitted that they only did visual inspections on all the services they carried out. What the f
k!!! They did however offer the next service for free, but by then I decided that if they couldn't be arsed to remove the wheels on the main service, what chance did I have of them doing anything remotely useful when the service was done for free.
And yes, I did learn the error of my ways, I sold the Range Rover, and purchased a P reg 320d BMW which I later traded in after 246,000 miles. Superb car in all respects.
I say this from experience...
Many years ago I owned a 4.6 HSE Range Rover and had it serviced as per the service manual by the main Range Rover dealerships in Nottingham and Sheffield. One particular occasion after visiting a customer I was advised that my front tyre had a slow puncture, as luck would have it there was a tyre centre literally across the road, so I drove over to them to repair the puncture before more damage was caused. The tyre fitter jacked the car up, whipped the wheel nuts off, then burst out laughing. I asked him what the problem was and he informed me that the wheel had literally seized onto the centre hub so it was fortunate that the puncture had occurred where it did instead of on a country lane in the middle of nowhere. When I explained that it had only recently had a main service he suggested that the wheels had certainly not been removed in the service. He then went off to look for a suitable device to remove the wheel and returned with a long 100mm x100mm wooden post. After much grunting and groaning the wheel finally came free and the tyre was repaired.
Well at this point I wasn't happy because the authorised Range Rover main dealer in Nottingham had charged me approx £760 for this service. When I phoned the dealer up they finally admitted that they only did visual inspections on all the services they carried out. What the f
k!!! They did however offer the next service for free, but by then I decided that if they couldn't be arsed to remove the wheels on the main service, what chance did I have of them doing anything remotely useful when the service was done for free.And yes, I did learn the error of my ways, I sold the Range Rover, and purchased a P reg 320d BMW which I later traded in after 246,000 miles. Superb car in all respects.
TA14 said:
I was wondering whether the discussion about the drawbacks of copper grease had changed the OP's mind.
Unless I've skipped a bit, the "drawbacks of copper grease" related to greasing the studs/nuts, rather than the hub/wheel mating surfaces. I've had a wheel come loose once, due to the nuts not being tightened after a brake service. The vibration as it started to loosen after about 20 miles was an immediate clue that something wasn't right. Pulled over immediately!
I once bent a cheap aftermarket alloy by trying to wallop it off.
Alloy wheels get stuck on steel hubs because of electrolytic corrosion, do they not? So maybe white grease rather than copper grease would be a good plan.
Whatever your choice of lube, though, it should only be on the spigot: the wheel and hub joint faces themselves should be kept clean and dry.
A smear of lube on the threads and the tapers of the wheelnuts should make for more consistent torqueing, too.
Alloy wheels get stuck on steel hubs because of electrolytic corrosion, do they not? So maybe white grease rather than copper grease would be a good plan.
Whatever your choice of lube, though, it should only be on the spigot: the wheel and hub joint faces themselves should be kept clean and dry.
A smear of lube on the threads and the tapers of the wheelnuts should make for more consistent torqueing, too.
silentbrown said:
TA14 said:
I was wondering whether the discussion about the drawbacks of copper grease had changed the OP's mind.
Unless I've skipped a bit, the "drawbacks of copper grease" related to greasing the studs/nuts, rather than the hub/wheel mating surfaces. FiF said:
The science of this is that there is a window of clamping pressure where too little pressure allows the wheel to move and shuffle, wears bolt holes and studs and eventually the whole thing becomes a lost wheel.
Too high a clamping pressure can cause distortion but more likely the elastic limit of the studs is exceeded, they plastically deform then the clamping pressure is too little, see first paragraph.
So in essence it has to be greater clamping force than separation forces in cornering, to provide sufficient friction to give acceleration and braking forces, plus not be so large that the elastic limit of the fastenings are exceeded during extreme manoeuvres. A certain amount of the acceleration and braking forces are passed through the rigid assembly of the tightened construction I.e. hub, wheel and fastenings but it's only a part.
In cars this window of clamping pressure is very wide, which translates into torque settings. In large goods vehicles and buses the window is relatively small hence the wheel fitting practice has to be closely controlled. Fixings for heavy vehicles using cup and cone design can, especially on older vehicles, can an almost impossibly small window due to friction. See below.
It's not just a matter of bunging the wheel on and winding up the fixings. Dirt or excessive paint and grease between the mating surfaces can result in loss of clamping pressure. Damaged and in particular dirty threads can mean so much of the applied torque is lost in overcoming friction that again clamping pressure is insufficient. Dirty threads coupled with cup and cone fixings can mean on some vehicles it is impossible to obtain sufficient clamping pressure
Which leads to the advice that best practice is to ensure threads are clean and very lightly oiled. Some argue oiling the threads is not correct as this can lead to loosening fixings. In reality the science and measurements show that it's wrong. Clean mating surfaces, clean and very lightly oiled threads, correct torque, rechecked after some miles is the way to go. Using the correct parts as specified by OEM is of course taken as a given.
Too high a clamping pressure can cause distortion but more likely the elastic limit of the studs is exceeded, they plastically deform then the clamping pressure is too little, see first paragraph.
So in essence it has to be greater clamping force than separation forces in cornering, to provide sufficient friction to give acceleration and braking forces, plus not be so large that the elastic limit of the fastenings are exceeded during extreme manoeuvres. A certain amount of the acceleration and braking forces are passed through the rigid assembly of the tightened construction I.e. hub, wheel and fastenings but it's only a part.
In cars this window of clamping pressure is very wide, which translates into torque settings. In large goods vehicles and buses the window is relatively small hence the wheel fitting practice has to be closely controlled. Fixings for heavy vehicles using cup and cone design can, especially on older vehicles, can an almost impossibly small window due to friction. See below.
It's not just a matter of bunging the wheel on and winding up the fixings. Dirt or excessive paint and grease between the mating surfaces can result in loss of clamping pressure. Damaged and in particular dirty threads can mean so much of the applied torque is lost in overcoming friction that again clamping pressure is insufficient. Dirty threads coupled with cup and cone fixings can mean on some vehicles it is impossible to obtain sufficient clamping pressure
Which leads to the advice that best practice is to ensure threads are clean and very lightly oiled. Some argue oiling the threads is not correct as this can lead to loosening fixings. In reality the science and measurements show that it's wrong. Clean mating surfaces, clean and very lightly oiled threads, correct torque, rechecked after some miles is the way to go. Using the correct parts as specified by OEM is of course taken as a given.
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