91 Accord missing a lug nut

You can drive for a bit with three nuts. If you are mechanically inclined, you can purchase a new stud from any auto parts store and with the use of a puller, press the old stud out. Take a number of washers, and torque the nut on the new stud until seated.

To me, everything looks like a nail. And, of course, I don't have a puller. But it sounds like a pretty cheap fix so I'll ask around and see if I can get it done cheap.

but that should only be as a "get you home", not long term.

indeed.

the store where you buy the stud will almost certainly have a suitable tool which they'll either loan for free or cheap so you can do it yourself. do NOT go to the idiot that mis-diagnosed your brake problem and ripped you for new rotors.

It will take some skill to install a new lug nut on this car because you will need to cut off some of the the stud to install it without moving the hub as I can recall.

If one wheel stud breaks... best practice is to replace all the studs on that wheel. Not sure... but for large trucks in the Province of Ontario, I think it's the law. I've always replaced all the studs. Why did the wheel stud break? Was it over torqued at one time? Was the wheel nut removed and it stressed the stud because the nut was seized? Have the remaining studs been stressed because they have been carrying more load? It's generally a inexpensive easy job to do. Replace all the studs.

snipped-for-privacy@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (M.A. Stewart) wrote in news:i6e9h7$ons$ snipped-for-privacy@theodyn.ncf.ca:

That's the usual cause.

That's not a usual cause. Even very rusty nuts will eventually spin loose with little stress on the stud.

Not on the '91 Accord. Replacement requires a hydraulic press even to be able to remove the old stud.

shoulda bought the shop manual. you can remove the hub on the accord without any drama or special presses - the bearing assembly unbolts from the knuckle. from there, you can just punch out the broken stud and replace it - no need to cut anything.

i've done it by putting the hub in a vise and using a punch and hammer. doesn't need an hydraulic press.

for commercial vehicles, that's very sensible for two reasons:

1. studs usually break from fatigue, not overload. if one has fatigued, there is a very high probability that the others will also have accumulated fatigue damage with more failures to soon follow.
2. large trucks are usually maintained by trained technicians that know what they're doing and who don't over-torque. cars are frequently maintained by people who are are none of those things and who over-torque as a matter of routine.

i have on my desk as i write, a failed stud from a friend's honda civic. the fracture surface clearly shows classic twist shear where the stud was twisted beyond yield, and not just beyond yield, but twisted all the way off.* no fatigue is evident. in this situation, i.e. without fatigue, you can be pretty confident that replacing just the one stud is sufficient.

• i witnessed some tire jockey nearly do something similar to my car a while back. he crossed the wheel nut threads, tried to impact drive the nut on anyway, reached a point where it wouldn't turn any further but before the nut was snug, and was about to crank the driver up to "nut buster" when i intervened. older hondas seem to have loose stud thread specs, so crossed threads are not uncommon. accommodation for corrosion in the rust belt i guess.

In the old days the truck tire mechanics would just drive the lug nuts home with a impact wrench. About 10 years ago the media in Ontario had a field day with trucks losing wheels on the highways. People were getting killed etc.. The government of Ontario started a crack down. 3 years ago I saw a large tandem axle garbage truck getting a tire repair... and I couldn't believe it... the tire guy was using a 3/4 drive torque wrench to tighten the lug nuts. Many of the trucks on the road now sport fluorescent green plastic triangles attached to the lug nuts, to better visually indicate if a lug nut/stud is missing.

I've twisted a few wheel studs off in the rust belt trying to remove the lug nuts. These were the regular open lug nuts (some of the stud threads were exposed to the elements). The worst was on a Renault. The French have to always be different. Most Renaults only had 3 wheel studs instead of 4 (every other similar size car would have 4). No putting the wheel back on with 1 lug nut and driving easily to the parts store to buy new studs and lug nuts. The only thing about French cars which was good, were their seats... absolutely the most comfortable seats ever installed in cars from the 1960's and 1970's, no matter how bottom rung of the price range. Don't get me started on Peugeot with their ass-backward firing order.

snipped-for-privacy@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (M.A. Stewart) wrote in news:i6m5qr$88k$ snipped-for-privacy@theodyn.ncf.ca:

That was only with the then-new one-piece aluminum wheels. The old 2-piece wheels were always fine.

The problem turned out to be corrosion between the aluminum wheel-face and the steel hub-face. The bolts were originally torqued down sufficiently, but over time the corrosion would shift, leading to a reduction in tightness of the fasteners. This was completely unexpected by anybody, and was not experienced in areas where corrosion was less of an issue.

Not missing, but having backed-off (rotated) from its installed position.

Actually they were 3-piece wheels called split-rims. The 3rd piece was a retaining ring. Those wheels were dangerous if the ring was not seated properly. Many people have been killed by split rims. Mostly tire changers who did not cage or chain wrap the tire wheel assembly while filling with air (160 psi?). The ring would let go during filling and the whole thing would blow apart like a WMD.

I think I saw some of the news reports showing a truck with split rims having lost a wheel. Maybe it was lost because of a cooked wheel bearing, busted wheel studs, or ring unseating, I don't know, it was 3 or 4 seconds of film 10 years ago.

Those wheel studs have never popped off?

worse than that, some had standard r/h thread on both sides!!! with big commercial vehicles where loads don't allow you the luxury of the kind of wheel safety design features you see on car wheels, you absolutely /must/ have precession-proof stud threads of they can loosen with disastrous consequences.

the result, yes. that explanation? doesn't sit right.

normally, if you have steel and aluminum corroding together, the joint between them expands. that would effectively tighten the stud, not loosen it. over-tight means premature fatigue and failure. add that to the fact that for most commercial vehicles with precession-proof threads, even what was once a loose nut will quickly tighten, and again, that explanation doesn't add up.

A press for a wheel stud.

snipped-for-privacy@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (M.A. Stewart) wrote in news:i6mi8b$le3$ snipped-for-privacy@theodyn.ncf.ca:

The point is that lost wheels were /extremely/ rare with the old-style wheels. And this in the almost total absence of any sort of "crackdown" or oversight of any kind.

I'm sure they have and do, but that's not why the green triangles are there.

Airport Shuttle wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@no-mx.forums.travel.com:

What on earth are you talking about?