Wheel stuck on hub: help.
Discussion
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. 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!
Studs / threads nuts, clean undamaged lightly oiled
Wheel hub mating surface, clean remove any corrosion, dirt, do not grease nor oil. Ensure nothing trapped and no thick paint.
Hub spigot and spigot hole, clean, it's ok to apply copper grease to this imo.
If alloy wheels are left attached and not removed at least every year then they can be a bugger to remove evidenced by this thread. Get them loose per previous posts, clean them up and make sure after that they are removed regularly. Do not oil or grease mating surfaces except spigot as above if you wish.
IroningMan said:
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.
AIUI white grease melts and falls off, hence the use of copper grease. Do you think that the surfaces still corrode together through the copper? Or does the grease tend to migrate and it's the bare patches that corrode together?conkerman said:
I have been using the thinnest smear of copper anti seize compound on the hub flanges for about >15years after a monumentally seized wheel.
I aten't dead yet.
Just saying.
That's all fair enough and clearly the operative words are thinnest smear. I aten't dead yet.
Just saying.
The problem is that you may be doing this on a very light vehicle with a very generous window for acceptable clamping pressures.
As you go up in power and in particular vehicle weight you can get to a situation where a smear could be an issue.
You wouldn't believe the number of different scenarios where vehicles lose wheels.
One old timer lost a wheel off his 8 wheel tipper despite him diligently checking the fixings every morning. Turned out that he applied the wrench, stuck a bar on it and bounced up and down on the end until his nuts cracked. Oo er missus!
What he had done was ultimately a tensile test on one of the studs, it had yielded, clamping pressure on that one lost, extra load on the others, which were already overloaded due to the daily tightening, in the course of a morning the whole lot broke.
conkerman said:
I have been using the thinnest smear of copper anti seize compound on the hub flanges for about >15years after a monumentally seized wheel.
I aten't dead yet.
Just saying.
That's all fair enough and clearly the operative words are thinnest smear. I aten't dead yet.
Just saying.
The problem is that you may be doing this on a very light vehicle with a very generous window for acceptable clamping pressures.
As you go up in power and in particular vehicle weight you can get to a situation where a smear could be an issue.
You wouldn't believe the number of different scenarios where vehicles lose wheels.
One old timer lost a wheel off his 8 wheel tipper despite him diligently checking the fixings every morning. Turned out that he applied the wrench, stuck a bar on it and bounced up and down on the end until his nuts cracked. Oo er missus!
What he had done was ultimately a tensile test on one of the studs, it had yielded, clamping pressure on that one lost, extra load on the others, which were already overloaded due to the daily tightening, in the course of a morning the whole lot broke.
TA14 said:
AIUI white grease melts and falls off, hence the use of copper grease. Do you think that the surfaces still corrode together through the copper? Or does the grease tend to migrate and it's the bare patches that corrode together?
I've heard tell that it's sufficiently conductive, but I don't know for sure. I use it, but then I seldom leave the wheels on anything for longer than a few months at a time, so haven't had any issues like this for a while.FiF said:
That's all fair enough and clearly the operative words are thinnest smear.
The problem is that you may be doing this on a very light vehicle with a very generous window for acceptable clamping pressures.
As you go up in power and in particular vehicle weight you can get to a situation where a smear could be an issue.
You wouldn't believe the number of different scenarios where vehicles lose wheels.
One old timer lost a wheel off his 8 wheel tipper despite him diligently checking the fixings every morning. Turned out that he applied the wrench, stuck a bar on it and bounced up and down on the end until his nuts cracked. Oo er missus!
What he had done was ultimately a tensile test on one of the studs, it had yielded, clamping pressure on that one lost, extra load on the others, which were already overloaded due to the daily tightening, in the course of a morning the whole lot broke.
So is the correct drill to back each one off and re-torque, or just check visually?The problem is that you may be doing this on a very light vehicle with a very generous window for acceptable clamping pressures.
As you go up in power and in particular vehicle weight you can get to a situation where a smear could be an issue.
You wouldn't believe the number of different scenarios where vehicles lose wheels.
One old timer lost a wheel off his 8 wheel tipper despite him diligently checking the fixings every morning. Turned out that he applied the wrench, stuck a bar on it and bounced up and down on the end until his nuts cracked. Oo er missus!
What he had done was ultimately a tensile test on one of the studs, it had yielded, clamping pressure on that one lost, extra load on the others, which were already overloaded due to the daily tightening, in the course of a morning the whole lot broke.
TA14 said:
I was wondering whether the discussion about the drawbacks of copper grease had changed the OP's mind.
It was interesting discussion, and I certainly wouldn't do it to a truck wheel if I ever needed to refit one of those.Even with the content of that discussion, I did use copper grease (not much) when I put the winter wheels on.
This is largely because in all the years I've had cars it's never caused me a problem with a loose wheel.
C
rich888 said:
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.
....
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.
Did the service schedule call for the wheels to be removed? I know you said it was years ago, but it's not been general practice to remove wheels on a service for many years.....
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.
Sheepshanks said:
rich888 said:
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.
....
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.
Did the service schedule call for the wheels to be removed? I know you said it was years ago, but it's not been general practice to remove wheels on a service for many years.....
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.
Have mentioned this before but used to have a Mondeo as a company vehicle.
Always took it to the same garage booked by the leasing company. Just before it was due to go back it went in for a major service.
Picking it up, told the bod collecting it from a service. He fetched the keys and paperwork with a frown.
"Did you say service? " he said, "as it's just a lights and levels check here"
Enquiring what that was showed it was literally, did the lights work and oil, water, etc. Stuff I did every day basically.
So I mentioned it was due to go back in a month so maybe that was why.
More frowning and a check on the computer record resulted in the response that it hadn't had a proper spanner on it in over 18 months and 45,000miles.
The sad thing is that the leasing company are probably right economically. Say it saves them £600 per car over three years then that's £30,000 for 50 Mondeos and the failure rate is less frequent than 1 in 50 then they're quids in (ignoring the H&S aspect and the consequences of a resulting accident)
I tried everything except driving around with loose wheel bolts (that sounds like a recipe for disaster).
Gave up in the end. Tyres are worn, so I'll use a garage.
I wanted to remove the wheels to check the brake pads/disks/drums.
I'm not usually defeated with DIY tasks but I know when I'm beat.
Gave up in the end. Tyres are worn, so I'll use a garage.
I wanted to remove the wheels to check the brake pads/disks/drums.
I'm not usually defeated with DIY tasks but I know when I'm beat.
andrewedmondson said:
I tried everything except driving around with loose wheel bolts (that sounds like a recipe for disaster).
Gave up in the end. Tyres are worn, so I'll use a garage.
I wanted to remove the wheels to check the brake pads/disks/drums.
I'm not usually defeated with DIY tasks but I know when I'm beat.
I had this issue a couple of days ago when I had a flat tire, tried all suggestions above, none of which worked. Gave up in the end. Tyres are worn, so I'll use a garage.
I wanted to remove the wheels to check the brake pads/disks/drums.
I'm not usually defeated with DIY tasks but I know when I'm beat.
What I did was put the car on its wheels and on the offending wheel screw in 4 bolts by just 3 or four turns (loose).
Then go to the opposite side of the car and rock it on its suspension, the weight of the car will crack the wheel from the hub.
Captain Muppet said:
I was going to get a bat-signalesque spot light made but couldn't come up with a graphic device I was happy with.
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.
I get the clamping-pressure-leads-to-required-friction thing, but: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.
This then means that all cornering/lateral loads are still taken up by the tensile strength of the bolts, not the clamping force friction.
The upshot then is that this clamping-force-friction's role only comes into play for acceleration & braking (rotational load) - correct?
Arif110 said:
I get the clamping-pressure-leads-to-required-friction thing, but:
This then means that all cornering/lateral loads are still taken up by the tensile strength of the bolts, not the clamping force friction.
The upshot then is that this clamping-force-friction's role only comes into play for acceleration & braking (rotational load) - correct?
Well, it's the way a bolted assembly works which is subject to both varying and repetitive tensile and shear loads.This then means that all cornering/lateral loads are still taken up by the tensile strength of the bolts, not the clamping force friction.
The upshot then is that this clamping-force-friction's role only comes into play for acceleration & braking (rotational load) - correct?
You need sufficient clamping force so that the tensile separation forces from cornering, say, don't exceed the clamping force, but not so much tension in the studs providing said clamping force, that when you get extra load from separation forces that you exceed the elastic limit of the studs, which then plasticly deform. If that happens when the separation loads are removed, because the studs have plasticly deformed, they don't return to their original length and thus clamping force lost or reduced. On a slippery slope.
You also need sufficient clamping force to hold the components sufficiently tightly so that friction between the surfaces prevents sliding which will give rise to other problems.
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