Re: wheel stud fatigue

["Jan Schmidt" <jschmidt@kumc.edu>]

Sly Fox
Sure, wheel studs lasting forever might have been a slight exageration. 
However, my stock class RX7 is in its 7th year of autocrossing where I change 
the wheels twice at every event (about 100 events) including  6 Nationals and  
80K of street miles and don't have any noticable wear on my studs or nuts. I 
put a small amount of anti-sieze on the studs probably once a year and torque 
them to 65 or 70 foot-lbs instead of the factory spec of 76 ft-lbs. I cannot 
acount for cars with smaller studs and higher torques , but I bet I can go 
another 6 or 7 years w/o replacing the studs. To me that is basically " forever"
Bill Schmidt CS RX7 KC Region

>>> <SlyFoxRc@aol.com> 03/26 11:17 AM >>>
In a message dated 3/24/99 7:09:27 PM Pacific Standard Time, jschmidt@kumc.edu 
writes:

<< Sparingly put some anti-sieze on all of the studs and they will last
forever. >>
Bolts and Studs when torqued stretch when they approach the proper setting,
why do you think the proper way to set torque on connecting rod 
bolts is to measure the stretch of the bolt.  The bolts are replaced when
they go outside of the design stretch limits.....do you think that the wheel
studs are not stretching also leading to ultimate failure of the stud???
They will not last forever and you should not believe that they will.  Many 
wheels have departed from vehicles at Solo II events for various reasons,
I feel that stud fatigue has been the culprit in more than one incident.
Tracy Sandberg
Sly Fox Racing
P.S. The problem is magnified with the Neon, Miata situation where you 
have high recommended torque settings and relatively small studs.