In article ,
NY wrote:
"Roger Hayter" wrote in message
...
On 2 Dec 2020 at 15:16:53 GMT, ""Dave Plowman" News)"

wrote:

In article ,
NY wrote:
Does anyone know why most (all?) car manufacturers changed at about the
same time (late 70s?) from using nuts onto studs in the hub, to bolts
into holes in the hub? The latter is a lot easier because you can
"hang" the wheel from the central protrusion in the hub, and rotate it
until the holes in the wheel line up with those in the hub, rather than
having to simultaneously locate all four holes in the wheel with the
four protruding bolts on the hub.

Simply don't agree. With most offset wheels, they won't hang on the hub
anyway. So you need two hands to keep them in place - leaving none for
the
bolt. My last BMW with bolts provided a dummy bolt in the toolkit -
basically a bolt with no head. To help with alignment.

Quite agree. It's much easier to get them on studs.

We'll have to agree to differ. For me, it's easier to locate one large
hole on a wheel onto one large central boss, than to try to locate four
holes onto four studs simultaneously. Having located the wheel on the
boss, using both hands to take the wheel's weight, I can then transfer
one hand to the centre to hold the wheel in place (I agree: otherwise
it may fall off again) and use the other hand to rotate the wheel until
the holes line up and I can insert a bolt to hold the wheel from
falling off the boss.

There must have been a reason why most manufacturers all changed from
wheel nuts to wheel bolts at about the same time, and I presumed it was
done to make it (as I find it) easier to replace the wheel. Or is there
another advantage with using bolts? I wonder if it's because the head of
a bolt can be made conical (to mate with a conical depression in the
wheel) which helps to locate the wheel more accurately on the hub: as
each bolt is tightened, it centres the wheel about its bolt hole. Nuts
with a conical profile are harder to make (they also have to be used the
correct way round) so there is a tendency for the wheel to rest with
each hole asymmetric about its stud, and tightening the nuts does not
then correct that.

I have two cars - one with studs, one with bolts. Both alloy wheels. The
last few everyday cars had bolts. Both cars have large heavy wheels.
Neither is easy to change a wheel on. But on balance the studs better.

Of course this may vary with the design of wheel fitted to your vehicle.

If you look at commercial vehicles (trucks, etc) where you can assumed the
fixing are higher loaded than cars, they are all studs and nuts.

The location of the wheel is done by the collar on the hub, not the
fixings. But older steel wheels often had tapers on the nuts.

--
*I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.*

Dave Plowman London SW
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