Wheel Stud Fiasco!!

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wyowhitewolf

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Nov 26, 2005
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I have a Lance 845 cabover and am carrying it on a 3/4 ton SWB light duty (6 wheel studs and 7200 GVW) Chevy 4X4. I have added air-bags and a heavy duty swaybar. We snapped 5 of the six studs on the left rear after having the tires rotated (1350 miles). It was a pretty exciting ride for a couple minutes but God was on our side and no damage other than the studs. After 4 hours of towing and repairs we got back on the road with a wheel that has a different offset. (New wheel is on the way!)  Here's the question, do you think it was a weight problem or a lugnut torque problem. I know the Chevy needs to have the lugs tightened to 140 lbs and I know the wheel was wallowed out. The lugs were installed using a rattle stick and not a torque wrench. If it's a weight problem, I need a new truck :-\ Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I wish you enough.
 
Could be either over weight or improperly torqued lug bolts.  Of course you will never know just how much the lug bolts were torqued unless they used a proper torque wrench.  I will not allow the use of a rattle gun on my car or pickup and when ever I have tires changed or rotated I specify that no impact wrenches are to be used and lug nuts must be torqued to manufactures specs.  Since the holes in the wheels were wallowed out I would suspect under torqued lug bolts or improper location when torqued.

 
Also a friend of ours had a problem with the enlarged holes.  He finally contacted the original owner and found out the lugs had loosened and wallowered(is there such a word, there is now) them out.  So he replaced the rims,lug bolts, and nuts and all was well.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm going with the lugnuts. Can't afford a new truck. I had to look up the word, it was all I could come up with.
Main Entry: wallow
Function: noun
3 : a state of degradation or degeneracy
It seemed to fit.
New wheels are going on Tuesday.
I wish you enough.
 
The safe thing to do is to weigh the truck with the camper onboard.  You should know it's not a weight prolem, and not guess at it.

With the Lance 845 at 2190 lbs dry, there's more than a small chance you are at or beyond your rear axle weight limit (GAWR) of your truck. Depends, of course, on who and what else is onboard the truck as well as what is loaded into the camper.

It may well be a little of both problems. Slightly under-torqued lug nuts on a maximum loaded axle could have just the results you experienced.

For your safety and peace of mind, weigh the truck with the Lance and your usual gear onboard. It only takes a few minutes to stop at a truck scale and usually costs around $10 if you don't require the scale to issue a weigh ticket.
 
It's highly unusual for 5 out of 6 studs to break, even if they're torqued improperly. Are these custom wheels, or the ones that came from the factory? The small, round, center section of the drum or rotor carries most of the weight of the vehicle; not the studs. If the center hole of the wheel rim is too large, it could conceivably have been installed off-center, putting more of the weight on the studs, and perhaps shearing them. I would check the other wheels at the same time for correct center size AND hogging (wallowing) out of the holes, AND wear on the studs and nuts; especially the tapered inner part of them - there should be none. 
 
If the truck and wheels are properly designed then the lug bolts do not carry the weight of the vehicle, the center hole does, thus I suspect over, or under, torqued nuts,

I've broken two studs in my day, One by using a lug nut that was not quite the right size, it sized up and when I applied a bit of muscle to the lug wrench (yes, I was using a standard lug wrench of the kind FORD put in a 1977 LTD) the lug snapped like a pencil... The other was an F-350 Custom, truck (10,000 lb option package) same thing, using the lug wrench Ford provided I snapped that sucker like a twig.

I took a lot more care with the rest of them

a tire dealer snapped one of the lugs on my Lumina APV, More or less the same thing, nut was a bit rusty

My money is on a technician error
 

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