Wheel falling off and Stud Replacement

[GuglioLS]

After a big snow of 18 + inches and plowing the driveway for the “final” time, the wind picked up in a bad way – it blew hard all night.

The next day I had to leave the house for a work related trip. Our daughter Katie, left just a few minutes before me. Well she didn't’t make it to the top of the driveway. Her AWD RAV4 was buried in a snow drift! So me – dressed in business attire fired up the Jinma, then proceeded down the driveway to pull her out and re-plow for the umpteenth million time!

Along the way my steering wheel felt jerky – I looked down at the front wheels, the left front tire was wobbling in a bad way and I saw lug nuts FALLING OFF!

I stopped right there in the middle of the driveway, lowered the FEL bucket to lift the wheels off the ground. Then proceeded to walk to the shop to get the lug wrench.
Upon my return I attempted to tighten the nuts – not good, the lug threads were all chewed up. I did the best I could under the circumstances, but had to get my daughter out, clear the snow so that both of us could get going. I had a plane to catch!
I got her unstuck, plowed the snow drift, returned my poor baby to the barn and made a beeline to the airport.

Upon my return I assessed the damage –

This is as tight as I could get them – none of the nuts were seated against the wheel:



Stud threads got pretty chewed up:



I picked up a 14mm dia x 1.5 mm thread pitch die and chased the threads:



They came out good enough for now. I have new studs and lug nuts on the way from Affordable Tractor.



This is a pic of my Harbor freight lug wrench I use to chase the threads and tighten the lug nuts.



I got the wheel back on for now until I get all the parts. I will have to disassemble the front hub to drive the olds studs out.
All the red stuff you see on the wheel is NOT locktite!



I think what happened is all that 4 wheeling, back and forth pushing mountains of snow under high loads loosened them up. Honest, I tightened them up real good with that big “fancy” high leverage lug wrench – Two years ago

Moral of the Story – Check your Lug Nuts OFTEN!
(And every other nut, bolt and screw you can get to.)

Larry

[baknblack]

I've found mine loose a few time to.

Always happens at the best possible time to.

[GuglioLS]

This documents replacing the chewed up wheel studs. I also wanted to swap front wheels to widen the stance. So I had to take the wheels off anyway, I figured I better get them studs replaced so I did.

First was to raise the front end with the FEL then support the axle with jack stands. OOPS I have a small leak on the right front axle, tightening all the bolts where the axle attach's to the front wheel drive hub took care of that. They were pretty loose, I checked the other side, those were loose too but not as bad.





Larry

[GuglioLS]

Now that the leak is fixed, time to remove the wheels and swap them. I had a heck of a time removing the lug nuts on the side that was damaged when my wheel almost fell off. My 35 year old Rockwell impact wrench did the job.



I added a liberal amount of low strength loctite to the threads of the good studs.

The right side is done - so now it's time to remove the left front wheel drive hub and remove the studs........



Larry

[GuglioLS]

Dwayne:"I've found mine loose a few time to.

Always happens at the best possible time to"

No joke - what's with that anyway

All the bolts were removed around the perimeter of the front hub.
Then a screwdriver was used to pry off the hub, there are shims between the hub to set the amount of engagement between the ring gear and drive gear, mine has four sets of 3 spacers.

OH NO - lots of gear oil "leaked" out all over the place




Oh man what a mess........
See that small pan I should have used a kiddie pool instead I guess I better call hazmat to clean up this Exxon Valdez mess.

Larry

[GuglioLS]

After hazmat took care of my "little" accident it was time to get back to work.

Here is what the inside of the front hub looks like -

To remove and replace the wheels studs, the hub assembly needs to be completely disassembled. First hammer back the corners of the bolt locking tab, then remove the bolts -




Larry

[GuglioLS]

After removing the two bolts, the bearing needs to be removed. I do not have a press not sure why? I seem to be needing one. So I used what I had to hammer out the bearing (no damage done). A harbor freight 20 ton press would come in real handy for this sort of stuff. A 10" gear puller would have worked too.



See that red grease? I will comment on that a little later.....

Larry

[GuglioLS]

OK the red grease - Those Zerk's on the front axle that everyone wonders where the grease goes? It's supposed to grease the front wheel bearings. Not needed, I see absolutely no reason to grease those fittings, there is plenty of gear oil, in fact the bearings are swimming in gear oil so the grease does nothing except mix with the gear oil and dissolve away.



Larry

[GuglioLS]

Now to hammering out the damaged wheel studs. No press so a 5 pound hammer does the trick. Be sure to back up the hub with steel spacers close to the stud to prevent breakage.



Larry

[GuglioLS]

After geting all the damaged studs removed, the new ones were "pressed" in with the big hammer.




Larry

[GuglioLS]

Now it's time to reassemble the hub. The part that the studs are attached to had to be pressed back into the hub. Then flipped over to re-install the ring gear, then press on the other little bearing and install the two retaining bolts, the little plate and hammer over the corners to retain the bolts. After all that, the assembly can be reinstalled onto the front axle, don't forget to re-install the spacer shims.



Larry

[GuglioLS]

The end is near ;D

After assembling the hub it was reinserted onto the housing, then tighten all the bolts. So after all that I finally got to install the other wheel. Now the front wheel studs are repaired and the wheels are swapped to give a wider stance and be more stable.



I lost at least a gallon of gear oil in my mishap, I will drain what's left and fill with fresh 85-90 gear lube.

I still need to widen the rears but as you can see it's getting dark, it's also getting cold, but you can't see that. So the rears will wait for another day.


Larry

[GuglioLS]

In case you were wondering about the FEL being raised? I had it safely blocked with this hardwood board under the FEL lift cylinder. Just don't forget to remove the board BEFORE lowing the FEL



All done

Larry

[ezgile]

those studs look like an automotive style stud. Why didn't you just hit em directly as you would a cars?

[GuglioLS]

ezgile said:

those studs look like an automotive style stud. Why didn't you just hit em directly as you would a cars?

Hi ezgile

Click on the picture below. It should be clear as to why the hub assembly must be completely disassembled to remove the studs -




As you can see there is no way to just hammer them out like on a car.

Larry