Wheel stud engagement/trimming.

[HardDrive]

The stock wheels on my Mach 1 look at bit tucked in on the the back. I like the stock wheels, and would simply like to move them out a bit with spacers. I'm going to do some experimenting to figure out how far out I want them. At this point I'm thinking 1/2".

Great, but moving the wheel out means a lot less bite for the lug nuts. I was told that for a street car, the thread engagement should be 1.5 times the diameter of the stud to be adequate. This is not a big HP car, and will not be tracked.

A) Is the 1.5 times diameter figure quoted above accurate?

B) If I do need to install longer studs, is there any reason I should not trim the end of the studs so that closed end lug nuts will fit properly? (I don't want open ended lugs.)

[aschen]

1.0 diameters is usually pretty good as a rule of thumb for fasteners in general. 1.5 diameters should be peachy

[David]

Originally Posted by aschen

1.0 diameters is usually pretty good as a rule of thumb for fasteners in general. 1.5 diameters should be peachy

Agreed

[DanielDudley]

You should be able to walk into just about any decent local parts store and get the right size studs without having to trim them.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by DanielDudley

You should be able to walk into just about any decent local parts store and get the right size studs without having to trim them.

Hah! Good luck with that. These days, they (almost) all use a computer to find the application. Most computers won't list a "same thing but +.5 inch" option. Studs not as simple as just going in and thinking, "hmm, this 20mm long 3mm fine thread bolt isn't long enough, so I'll buy a 25mm long 3mm fine thread bolt instead."

You've got to get the right diameter for the shoulder so it fits, plus length, plus thread diameter and pitch. Finding that at most parts places will be a pain. At the very least, they'll have to go to the books, and that's if they still have books.

If you go that route, your best bet would be to find something like the old NAPA, hopefully that still has an old timer hanging around that will have a clue.

[HardDrive]

Mustangs have such a huge audience that finding studs is not difficult. Ford has used the same ones for a long time. But the choices of length are not unlimited, thus my question about trimming them.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Mustangs have such a huge audience that finding studs is not difficult. Ford has used the same ones for a long time. But the choices of length are not unlimited, thus my question about trimming them.

Right. Some Mustang board somewhere could probably even result in a part number for something that would work, but, yes, I assume you could trim some. I'd bet that it would be a HUGE pain in the rear.

[gordner]

Well for airplanes, standard practice is the chamfer showing means the nut is sufficiently engaged. They used to say Chamfer plus 1.5 threads.

1 or 1.5 diameter is a lot

[MysticLlama]

H&R Spacer kits usually come with new studs. That's probably the easiest method for all of the above.