Stripped Lug Nuts

BrenttheMouse · Sep 1, 2022

In teaching my young sister in law how to change a tire, she managed to cross thread 2 of the lug nuts on one of the rear wheels. The hub bolts are fine, so I ordered two replacement lug nuts but they won't be here for a few days. I grabbed one of the lug nuts from the other wheel so that each rear wheel has 7 nuts a piece. Is the truck safe to drive like this?

KDT1970 · Sep 1, 2022

You should have been able to go buy some at the local auto parts store.
Other than that, you should be fine only missing one lug per wheel.

chopperman1 · Sep 1, 2022

You'll be fine for a few days. Make sure the missing ones are on the rear wheels and not the front. Front is subject to a lot of latteral force where the rear is inline torque.

Jeepwalker · Sep 1, 2022

I saw some folks pull into a parts store in a beat up Lincoln Navigator some months ago next to me. This rig looked like it had never seen much maintenance, it was badly beat up and rusted. I was sitting in my car, finishing a phone conversation. I happened to look over and noticed there were only 2 lug nuts (per wheel) on both wheels that were facing my side! The studs were pretty rusty on the other unused studs. They'd probably been driving it ....who knows how long? And the Navigator is a heavy rig. That is definitely NOT the way to go, but just shows ya the tolerance of some vehicles.

Wild one · Sep 1, 2022

BrenttheMouse said:
In teaching my young sister in law how to change a tire, she managed to cross thread 2 of the lug nuts on one of the rear wheels. The hub bolts are fine, so I ordered two replacement lug nuts but they won't be here for a few days. I grabbed one of the lug nuts from the other wheel so that each rear wheel has 7 nuts a piece. Is the truck safe to drive like this?

Back when Chrysler used left hand threaded wheel nuts on the cars,it wasn't uncommon to see an early Chrysler running around with only 2 or 3 nuts holding the wheels on,and the rest of the wheel studs broke off. The older guys on here will remember those days,lol.

RamInfo · Sep 1, 2022

I’d encourage a visit to a FLAPS for replacement lugnuts. Back in the 70s I discovered just before the main event a broken lug stud on the left rear wheel of a late-model race car I drove for my uncle. Figured I’d be ok and started anyway, lost the entire wheel 4 laps in, with interesting results, after the other studs sheared off. Granted, that was an extreme application, but even in street driving those rear wheels get some side stress when turning.

Lug nuts are cheap and readily available. Just sayin’

best,
DG

Stripped Lug Nuts

BrenttheMouse

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KDT1970

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chopperman1

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Jeepwalker

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Wild one

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RamInfo

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