91 Accord missing a lug nut

The same Accord I just asked about whether it was worth keeping. I had
a flat fixed and the guy said that there were only three lug nuts -
sure enough, one of bolts is broken off halfway out. There's some rust
on the broken end so it must have happened earlier and I didin't
notice.

The guy says that it's safe to drive on but I'd rather not have the
front wheel fly off. So I need to bring it in to be fixed I would
think. What's this likely to cost?

 

You can drive for a bit with three nuts.
If you are mechanically inclined, you can purchase a new stud from any auto
parts store and with the use of a puller, press the old stud out.
Take a number of washers, and torque the nut on the new stud until seated.

 

To me, everything looks like a nail. And, of course, I don't have a
puller. But it sounds like a pretty cheap fix so I'll ask around and
see if I can get it done cheap.

 

but that should only be as a "get you home", not long term.

indeed.

 

the store where you buy the stud will almost certainly have a suitable
tool which they'll either loan for free or cheap so you can do it
yourself. do NOT go to the idiot that mis-diagnosed your brake problem
and ripped you for new rotors.

 

It will take some skill to install a new lug nut on this car because yo
will need to cut off some of the the stud to install it without movin
the hub as I can recall

 

If one wheel stud breaks... best practice is to replace all the studs
on that wheel. Not sure... but for large trucks in the Province of
Ontario, I think it's the law. I've always replaced all the studs. Why did
the wheel stud break? Was it over torqued at one time? Was the wheel
nut removed and it stressed the stud because the nut was seized? Have
the remaining studs been stressed because they have been carrying
more load? It's generally a inexpensive easy job to do. Replace all the
studs.

 

(M.A. Stewart) wrote in

That's the usual cause.

That's not a usual cause. Even very rusty nuts will eventually spin
loose with little stress on the stud.

Not on the '91 Accord. Replacement requires a hydraulic press even to be
able to remove the old stud.

 

shoulda bought the shop manual. you can remove the hub on the accord
without any drama or special presses - the bearing assembly unbolts from
the knuckle. from there, you can just punch out the broken stud and
replace it - no need to cut anything.

 

i've done it by putting the hub in a vise and using a punch and hammer.
doesn't need an hydraulic press.

 

for commercial vehicles, that's very sensible for two reasons:

1. studs usually break from fatigue, not overload. if one has fatigued,
there is a very high probability that the others will also have
accumulated fatigue damage with more failures to soon follow.

2. large trucks are usually maintained by trained technicians that know
what they're doing and who don't over-torque. cars are frequently
maintained by people who are are none of those things and who
over-torque as a matter of routine.

i have on my desk as i write, a failed stud from a friend's honda civic.
the fracture surface clearly shows classic twist shear where the stud
was twisted beyond yield, and not just beyond yield, but twisted all the
way off.* no fatigue is evident. in this situation, i.e. without
fatigue, you can be pretty confident that replacing just the one stud is
sufficient.

* i witnessed some tire jockey nearly do something similar to my car a
while back. he crossed the wheel nut threads, tried to impact drive the
nut on anyway, reached a point where it wouldn't turn any further but
before the nut was snug, and was about to crank the driver up to "nut
buster" when i intervened. older hondas seem to have loose stud thread
specs, so crossed threads are not uncommon. accommodation for corrosion
in the rust belt i guess.

 

In the old days the truck tire mechanics would just drive the lug nuts home
with a impact wrench. About 10 years ago the media in Ontario had a field
day with trucks losing wheels on the highways. People were getting killed
etc.. The government of Ontario started a crack down. 3 years ago I saw
a large tandem axle garbage truck getting a tire repair... and I couldn't
believe it... the tire guy was using a 3/4 drive torque wrench to tighten
the lug nuts. Many of the trucks on the road now sport fluorescent green
plastic triangles attached to the lug nuts, to better visually indicate if
a lug nut/stud is missing.

I've twisted a few wheel studs off in the rust belt trying to remove the
lug nuts. These were the regular open lug nuts (some of the stud
threads were exposed to the elements). The worst was on a Renault. The
French have to always be different. Most Renaults only had 3 wheel studs
instead of 4 (every other similar size car would have 4). No putting the
wheel back on with 1 lug nut and driving easily to the parts store to buy
new studs and lug nuts. The only thing about French cars which was good,
were their seats... absolutely the most comfortable seats ever installed
in cars from the 1960's and 1970's, no matter how bottom rung of the price
range. Don't get me started on Peugeot with their ass-backward firing order.

 

(M.A. Stewart) wrote in

That was only with the then-new one-piece aluminum wheels. The old 2-piece
wheels were always fine.

The problem turned out to be corrosion between the aluminum wheel-face and
the steel hub-face. The bolts were originally torqued down sufficiently,
but over time the corrosion would shift, leading to a reduction in
tightness of the fasteners. This was completely unexpected by anybody, and
was not experienced in areas where corrosion was less of an issue.

Not missing, but having backed-off (rotated) from its installed position.

 

Actually they were 3-piece wheels called split-rims. The 3rd piece was a
retaining ring. Those wheels were dangerous if the ring was not seated
properly. Many people have been killed by split rims. Mostly tire changers
who did not cage or chain wrap the tire wheel assembly while filling with
air (160 psi?). The ring would let go during filling and the whole thing
would blow apart like a WMD.

I think I saw some of the news reports showing a truck with split rims having
lost a wheel. Maybe it was lost because of a cooked wheel bearing, busted
wheel studs, or ring unseating, I don't know, it was 3 or 4 seconds of
film 10 years ago.

Those wheel studs have never popped off?

 

worse than that, some had standard r/h thread on both sides!!! with big
commercial vehicles where loads don't allow you the luxury of the kind
of wheel safety design features you see on car wheels, you absolutely
/must/ have precession-proof stud threads of they can loosen with
disastrous consequences.

 

the result, yes. that explanation? doesn't sit right.

normally, if you have steel and aluminum corroding together, the joint
between them expands. that would effectively tighten the stud, not
loosen it. over-tight means premature fatigue and failure. add that to
the fact that for most commercial vehicles with precession-proof
threads, even what was once a loose nut will quickly tighten, and again,
that explanation doesn't add up.

 

A press for a wheel stud

 

(M.A. Stewart) wrote in

The point is that lost wheels were /extremely/ rare with the old-style
wheels. And this in the almost total absence of any sort of "crackdown" or
oversight of any kind.

I'm sure they have and do, but that's not why the green triangles are
there.

 

What on earth are you talking about?