Thread: What do you think? Wheel Nuts

Originally Posted by 101RRS

My car has the standard LR 18" alloy wheels with the original wheel nuts. Over the years of ownership I have had a few of the stainless covers on the wheel nuts slip and I have replaced them with originals.

Thankfully all these have happened in the driveway where I have the tools to get the nuts off. During the week I had to replace some CV boots and had to remove a wheel where on of the covers again failed despite using a proper wheel brace with 6 point socket.

I thought what would happen if I was out on the road and got a flat and was not able to get the wheel nut off with the tools I had so I thought I would replace all wheel nuts with solid ones.

I went online and spotted these 20 x Extreme 14x1.5 Alloy Wheel Lug Nut fit Landrover Discovery Series 3 4 & 5 and ordered 20.

I received them and they looked good but then compared them with the originals.

PXL_20240301_055827510.jpg

They area about 8mm shorter than the originals which is all in the threads. The new ones still have about 12mm contact with the stud threads compared with the originals about 20mm.

So what do you think? Is the 12mm contact enough (safe?) or should I return them?

Thanks

Garry

My brain is working overtime on this (blame the wine), but there are two important mating faces of the nut I believe.

The first is the flat face pulling the wheel against the hub. The second is the tapered face which centres the lug on the wheel (as much as the wheel self centres itself via the central bore locator/matching wheel to hub size.

In this case, isn’t the flat face going to meet with the wheel, but the taper will be sitting away from the matching taper of the wheel?? This sounds bad to me!!!

The general rule is you need as a minimum the same depth of thread engagement as the diameter. So for a 14x1.5 stud you should get a minimum of 9.33 full turns.

You will however find plenty say 6-7 full turns is enough.

Interesting that the original is much more than this. The original design is then probably based on 1.5 times the diameter - which would be considered a good practice (as it exceeds the minimum).

I would return those and purchase from Tuffant

TuffNuts for Alloys - 14x1.5 (pack of 5) | TuffAnt

Id check the taper of the tuffants as well. The ones youve bought seem a bit longer in the lug body, but they are short where it maters. Check the material grade as well, should be minimum Gr8, better G10.

The UK suppliers like Rimmers and Terra Firma do full steel lug nuts as well, perhaps check them out?

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

The general rule is you need as a minimum the same depth of thread engagement as the diameter. So for a 14x1.5 stud you should get a minimum of 9.33 full turns.

Not just a general rule, it's a legal requirement.

Originally Posted by LRD414

I would return those and purchase from Tuffant

TuffNuts for Alloys - 14x1.5 (pack of 5) | TuffAnt

Great bit of kit and definitely worth the extra money.

Some time ago I bought an after-market set supposedly LR specs. However the threads were very sloppy so I subsequently purchased enough replacement OEM nuts ex Duckworths (UK) and keep the sloppy ones strictly for emergency use.

Originally Posted by DiscoJeffster

The second is the tapered face which centres the lug on the wheel (as much as the wheel self centres itself via the central bore locator/matching wheel to hub size.

In this case, isn’t the flat face going to meet with the wheel, but the taper will be sitting away from the matching taper of the wheel?? This sounds bad to me!!!

The taper has nothing to do with tightening the wheel - the hole in the wheel is cylindrical - no taper at the bottom. The taper on the bottom of the nut is just to guide the wheel to the correct position when tightening.

Cheers

Garry