For brake disc misalignment with wheel bolts there is a very simple solution: DON'T loose or throw away that set screw and if it's gone for some reason - REPLACE IT!
Your channel is the best informal automotive RU-vid channel I have found in the ten plus years of watching RU-vid automotive content :) Thanks John from Toronto Canada.
Versal Mit Unterstrich wrote: I love how when Germans do anything unusual with their cares everyone's like "Well they're Germans, so there's gotta be an engineering reason to this" Well, there actually IS a reason. I just happen to be a german engineer, so if I may explain: Studs are not supposed to stick out so they have to be the exact required length to fit the rims. This is a regulation in germany and most of europe. Now lets say we use the proper studs to fit your steel rims which you typically use for base models or/and winter tires. When winter is over you want to fit your nice big summer alloy wheels which require slightly longer studs - which you don't have because they were made to fit your cheap steel rims. Bummer. Changing studs is a pain in the ass compared to just using slightly longer bolts. By the way, the studs on that Subaru seem to be just a little too short. Usually you'd want 2 threads of the stud to stick out of the nut....
1. Idiotic law. 2. "Bicycles have 'Rims'. Motor vehicles have 'wheels'". Learn the difference. 3. It's idiotic to justify stieoughpied "Because ancient roman chariot wheels would break gladiator knees."
My VW was also equipped with a smth like plastic guide rail which you screw into the hub and it prevents brake disk from moving and also helps to put the wheel on like a stud. German engineering you know.
i'm a mechanical engineer. yes, lubricant will affect wheel torques. however, there are many things that will i.e. dirt, rust, damaged threads, whether the threads are wet or dry while torquing. just as important is whether you torque your nuts with a smooth constant motion until fully torqued. if you stop rotating the nut/bolt just short of full torque then restart torquing the actual torque on the nut/bolt will be too low. static friction in the system is higher than sliding friction. the other factor that comes into play is debri i.e. dirt, rust, etc. between the back of the wheel and the hub mounting surface. this too will affect the effective torque on the wheel. the bottom line is a minimum of lubricant on the threaded portion of the lug/bolt is the least of your potential problems. just ensure you don't get lubricant on the conical friction/locking part of the bolt/nut or wheel.
As a mechanic apprentice in the UK I find a lot of cars use wheel bolts and they're absolute shite compared to studs. If you strip the threads on a wheel bolt then bam the whole hub has to be replaced where as if you strip a stud you can just replace that stud and nut
Meanwhile in other parts of the world that aren't full of European cars it's the other way around, wheel studs being the norm and wheel bolts being the rare, weird and dumb design.
The bolts seem like a real pain in the balls at first, but if the "set screw" is missing for some reason, you could always keep a threaded rod, with the same diameter and pitch as the bolts, on hand. That could be put in one hole to keep the rotor aligned while the wheel is put on, then removed after 3 of the 4 bolts have been started. This would have the added benefit of making it much easier to get the wheel on than it would be with 4 or 5 studs sticking out at once.
I used to race VW powered stock cars. The first car I bought, it started life as a '72 Kharman Ghia. The second one I built, full tube chassis, coil over suspension, rack and pinion best car I ever had. First thing I did was replace the bolts with (I believe. It was 40 years ago, even though I still have these two cars) 5/8 or 3/4 lug studs, with a one inch OD nut. At least two threads exposed, when tight. Rounded ends with no threads on the first 1/2 inch of the lugs to glue lug nuts on to the wheel for quick tire changes. Bounced off plenty of other cars battling for position. Never had an issue of a nut coming lose, or a stud breaking from side loads.
The screw is great until it rusts in place here in NH, or if you're doing any kind of racing you'll often need to change parts quickly and everything is at a very high temperature... That screw is going to get thrown away pretty fast.
It looks like the time spent dealing with a misaligned brake disc is greater than the time spent removing a hand tight screw. A quick dab of anti seize used during maintenance between races will make it come out as easy as it goes in.
If bolts were a good idea, there wouldn't be conversion kits to get rid of them. They're an unnecessary pain in the ass, just like everything else on German cars.
Bolts all the way. Never had any issues with the brake discs shifting, and for me it is easier to fit the wheel when nothing is sticking out like studs
Personally, I'm not a fan of wheel bolts. For wheel nut style cars, as long as the studs align with the wheel holes and the wheel fits on properly, one can just screw on the wheel nut and you're done. Trying to align everything perfectly, desperately trying to align the wheel holes with the bolt holes properly while changing a flat at night, in the rain as quickly and safely as possible? NOT FUN.
Safety is a real thing! If your car is wobbly on the little trunk jack on the side of the road somewhere in the dark, wheel studs and lug nuts are WAY safer. With wheel bolts you have to get your hands and your head in there to see everything line up, it's way more sketchy.
I've mostly had german cars, and im not a huge fan of wheel bolts. Im sure they are technically stronger, studs are just so much easier to deal with especially on a drift car where you do *a lot* of wheel changing. Wheel bolts are fine when you have the car on a lift in the right height for you, but really kind of annoying and straining when done with a jack on the track for the 15th time that day. Pretty sure I will do a stud conversion eventually.
What about open vs. closed-ended lug nuts and aluminum lug nuts vs. steel? I find my OEM Subaru lug nuts tops break off every season when I change from summer to winter tires.
I love watching your videos and I have learned so much but actually I can add something constructive this time. lol Honda stock rims use the same conical seat as vw audi porsche. I have a Porsche now, I use to be big into Hondas, you should have seen the look on my indys face when this same subject got brought up about wheel bolts. Honda does use studs and lug nuts but they are conical too, off the top of my head Honda is 12mm and the vw's are 14mm so that might be a bit more of problem. Keep the great videos coming!
Good poly bushings are great (the nice ones not the $59 eBay sets) but I remember an issue specifically with the big poly bushings in the rear axle beam... When you get them in and put it all together, they sort of bind up and don't allow the suspension to move up and down very freely, like when you jack the car up, the rear doesn't go to full droop smoothly and easily. This was years ago so there are probably good solutions now, but that was a problem and we used stock bushings in that location.
Thx team o'neil for responding since i don't really have no one else to ask about rally knowledge. Since i don't really have money to throw around i have a 1.3 that i'm going to learn how to port a head and do all the stuff i can do make it a little more faster and my own wiring (hoping it wont burn down :D). Anyways but why widen the Mk2s rear with the mk3 rear beam? what will i gain i lack knowledge so im all ears Great channel by the way i love your work keep it up.
If you use the Mk3 rear beam and the Mk3 front subframe and control arms, you will have a wider track, basically the car's footprint on the ground will be slightly wider without using wheel spacers or different offset wheels. The wider track will make your car a little more stable in the corners, less weight transfer, and a little less prone to rollover. If you look at photos of people racing the Mk2 golfs they are FAMOUS for lifting the rear inside tire right off the ground in tight corners... Good fun but you're really just losing grip (and therefore speed/time). Volkswagen made the Mk3 golf suspension a little wider to help fix this problem, and you can usually find those parts cheap in a junkyard and swap them over easily.
Have not watched the whole thing but looks like these guys cover all the details in a 3 part series: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CtOzV6GX8eE.html
Slightly unrelated question, that arose after watching this video. Which impact to get, that would work well for wheel lugnuts? (thinking about extending list of tools brought to trackday)
Most cordless 1/2" impacts will do OK... But we've just switched from Snap-On to Milwaukee. The new Milwaukee stuff is excellent. Not a sponsor of ours, we don't know anyone there, totally unbiased... After trying most of them recently we went Milwaukee.
Any particular model advised if looking mostly for use on wheel lugnuts (probably their models differ by torque)? How many wheel changes can be done on one battery?
Great advice, Wyatt! Do you recommend using anti-seize on the wheel bolts? I've heard that BMW/MINI (just a German/wheel bolt thing?) doesn't recommend using any anti-seize due to the fact that it will affect the torque setting for installing the wheel bolts. Truth be known, my MINI R60 bolts have a factory torque spec of ~100 ft-lbs whereas my Honda Element SC (OEM 18" 5 bolt rims) has ~85 ft/lbs for the lug nuts. Is that common for there to be such a variance between torque settings when you go from wheel bolts to lug nuts? Thanks in adv for the advice!
Thanks Will! So I just called ARP to ask what they recommend, and they say not to use any lubricant at all. I pressed them for a reason, and basically the answer is: "different lubricants and amounts of lubricants will all affect the precise torque on each stud and nut." Makes sense, especially for a manufacturer like BMW recommendation to play it safe and make sure you have precise and even wheel torque... But in the real world are we talking about minuscule differences that would be outweighed by the benefit of a little anti-seize on the threads, especially if you live where they salt the roads? I'll probably keep using a little anti-seize on my daily driver here in NH, but doubt I'll ever use it on a race car again. And the different torque spec... The bolts are usually supposed to be would in there pretty tight yes, but here's some food for thought: www.waymotorworks.com/m14x1.25-wheel-stud-kit-r60-countryman.html
grishk0 there are spacers available with integrated studs. You screw them in place with lugbolts and use the studs for the nuts. Cheap ones tend to break easily though. And i assume you know what you are doing when choosing to use spacers, and do not need a lecture on how bad of an idea it is unless you have no other way of fitting the wheel you want.
Dainis Berzins the idea is to widen the step of the car, and fill the fenders. I know that the better spacers are these who just sit on the wheel hub, and the wheel is tighten on the hub studs, not on the spacer.
I worked at a tire shop and fucking hated those things. It always misaligns and some cars you can barely line it up. Absolutely ridiculous design. Not to mention that set screw when trying to replace rotors.
if the bolt was in for location of disk it would be out of alignment for lug bolts but it is right they suck They are on both of my Saturns my guess it was just a way to save money on a stud and a nut.
Dave Wahrer I'm surprised I had to read this far down in the comments for this advice. But there's more: only use one (including with steel wheels) to break impossibly tight nuts/bolts. Simply running nuts/bolts off or on at that speed can wear or gall the threads (especially since they must be dry). The torque precision is very poor with most impact wrenches, and this torque is quite critical, especially as far as it varies on a particular wheel. They tend to over tighten which does not better hold on the wheel but, by over-tensioning the stud, can cause catastrophic failure of the stud, wheel, or hub. It looks cool to use an impact wrench on wheels, but, unlike the race teams being emulated, most of us can't afford to replace wheel hardware regularly--the trade-off for speedy pit stops.
Very true, generally. Alloys used in rally wheels and setups are meant to take punishment. But in most cases, best to just use the impact to spin lugs off and back on, and use a proper manual torque wrench to tighten down. It doesn't harm them to spin quickly or break them loose with the impact, the important thing is the proper torque.
Studs are much better ( why the Japanese probably use them as they are much better engineers than the Germans ), they give you a place to hang the wheels when replacing a wheel and if you strip a stud you have not ruined the whole hub. I love studs and acorn nuts ( closed ends to keep the rubbish away from the threads ).
I aggree on the quicker wheel change, although I never had a problem with my disc turning as long as I hit the brakes once before changing wheels. In general I'm not turning a wheel when taking it off, so this really doesn't concern me. And most BMW and Mercedes and couple others have the set-screw, so no problem here. In race apllication maybe, but then again why would you lose a set-screw in a race application while working more frequently on your wheels? I'm happy to never replace a wheel stud, because pressing this in with the hub mounted is not always comfortably easy nor succesful. And if you get the hub out anyway, it's the same with a torn wheel bolt. Although that really never happened with me nor in my automotive environment.
There's no difference between lug and stud... They're the same exact thing. Lug nuts on the other hand are different, obviously it's a nut..onto the lug. There is a different though between lug bolt and lug/stud
Im a VW mechanic and i like the bolts more because im faster with them and you can change the front brake disc and pads without having to remove the brake caliper ;)
the screw for the disk brake to the hub is missing off your golf, thats why the when you turn anything nothing lines up, its not a big problem 2minute job to put in a new screw to hold the brake disk to the hub, and then everthing lines up bolts for for when you change from summer to winter tyres, different rims, so just swap the bolts, if you had only studs sticking out you cant have a huge about of treat sticking out behond the nuts,
The screws work OK on a street car but usually rust in place here in HN. Also they just don't work for any kind of racing, when you need to change parts quickly and everything is at a very high temperature.
I tryuly hate seeing anyone use an impact wrench on lugnuts or wheel bolts wothout using a torque stick. Yeah, there are mehanics who swear that they can tell when something is torqued right from experience without using any kind of limiter or calibrated measuring tool, but I've never met one who would risk money or reputation in a test, but encountered MANY mis-torqued wheel fasteners. ( try removing lugnuts witn a torque wrench - if they need more than 110% of the installation torque to remove, and the hubs aren't so corroded that they need grinding or replacement, the nuts were were mis-installed.)
I would like your opinion. I fix cars for a living at Aamco Santa Clarita California. I have had to drive large cars because we, my wife and I have raised 5 kids. I fell in love with VW Golfs, so I bought a 2012 reg golf with a 2.5. I love it. The wheels and tires are stock steel 195/65/15. I like the idea of a taller sidewall for around town driving because sometimes you hit curbs and potholes, but they are wearing thin and I would like a little wider wheel and tire. I find myself spinning the tires often I drive it like a rally car. Sorry for the long version. Anyway any thoughts on what wheels and tires especially sizes. Thanks for your time and the videos. I like and share and subscribe them. mark@aamcosantaclarita.com
sit on your bum, Use your feet pointed like this- \O/, move your foot left to right to align the wheel and with your two free hands start a bolt and gun it down
