New Bus Owners and Stud Piloted Wheels

[Dreamscape]

For those seasoned veterans you already know this.

I'm going to tell you a story of what happened and what we found out yesterday.

A little background. We have owned our coach since 2003, and have really enjoyed our hobby. We haven't had the opportunity to do a lot of traveling, but do get out once in a while. We took our coach down for some new shoes yesterday and found out something that I wish I had done a long time ago.

I always do a pre-trip inspection. You know, the kind where you check your fluids, do a walk around and check lug nuts on all wheels, look for critters that maybe building a home and hitching a ride. All the necessary stuff one should do before heading out into the wild blue yonder.

I pulled it into the shop anxiously waiting for the guys to jack it up and go to work. We have steel wheels on the duals, with Stainless wheel covers. They started on the rear axle, left side. Started to pull off the outer dual and found out that a few of the outer studs were turning and not allowing the outer nuts to come off. After further inspection they determined that they had not been tight for quite sometime. This cannot be determined just by checking lug nuts, as they were tight.

The comment was made they are very surprised that we hadn't lost a wheel. Somewhere down the road a previous owner or shop had not installed the correct outer studs, a few were for aluminum wheels. The flange is different than for steel wheels and did not properly seat against the inner wheel.

They pulled off the drums and installed all new inner studs on one side, and 4 on the other side. Replaced all outer studs, and was able to reuse most of the outer nuts. Replaced one leaking wheel seal and put everything back together. What was supposed to be a 1 1/2 hour job, ended up taking almost 5 hours. The hubs still looked good, which was a surprise as we expected to see some egged out holes.

Always have your work done on a weekday, not Saturday. They found only one seal here in Abilene, which could have been a two day wait if we had been a day later.

They installed new tires on the tags without removing the the aluminum wheel. I was amazed by that. They said they never remove the wheels when they are aluminum wheels to replace the tires, even on duals. One guy said he can do one in 15 minutes.

Bottom line, take your coach into a shop, or if you have the tools and the place to do it. Get it done! Even if you don't need tires, pull them off and do an inspection. What could have been a disaster, I ended up being embarrassed.

All in all it was a great day, and the ride home was even better. The feeling that I had by averting disaster and feeling so much safer was great. It made me think how lucky and blessed we were to have avoided a very bad situation.

Paul

[jackhartjr]

Paul, I had a driver call me back in the early eighties, said, "Jack, I just stopped and two tires and wheels are missing!" 
Now think about that for a minute...he had lost them...and had NO idea where they went...or what they may have hit!
After that we started torquing EVEY wheel...NEVER had a wheel issue after that.  (And we were running 175 trucks in a west coast team operation.)
Anther time a driver was sitting in his truck doing his log book and a tire came off a dilapilated truck about a half mile away, rolled up the hill, through a barbed wire fence, bounced off a building, then hit just above the top of the windshield right in front of his face!  Actually bowed the top of the roof edge down. 

Torque them wheels boys and gurls!
Jack
PS...good story Paul, glad it turned out well.

[bevans6]

The only way that I know to check the torque on Budd inner nuts is to loosen off the outer nut on half of the nuts on the dual, torque the inner cones to spec, re-torque the outer nuts on those studs, then repeat for the other half of the studs.  You can't check the torque of the inner cone with the outer nut torqued.  Yeah, I've done this. 

Brian

[luvrbus]

Paul, good post it will amaze you how many think you can tighten the wheels using the just outer nut they get in a habit of doing that because of all the hub piloted wheels on roads today had a tire shop in Cameron Tx try and pull that on me

good luck

[Len Silva]

Owners of older buses really need to know about their coaches and proper maintenance.  It is getting harder and harder to find someone who knows about two strokes and that will become more common with stud piloted wheels.  Many of today's young mechanics and tire techs have never encountered them before and are lost.

[roadrunnertex]

A fellow bus buddy who is a MC-9 owner had a so called bus repair shop do some work on the rear brakes on his coach.
When the mechanics helper put the rear duals back on he installed the budd studs on less the inside wheel  then installed the inside dual wheel on the budd studs put the outer wheel on and put the outer budd nuts on holding the two wheels on with just the outer budd nuts.
Thank goodness my buddy caught the error before he drove out of the repair shop.
Folk's check out the repairs on your coach before you get in and drive it make sure it's done right.
jlv

[Cary and Don]

We happened to watch a program an tv last night that showed a truck that had lost both duals.  They went through the windshield of a car and put a guy in a coma for a month.  Seeing the picture of the car, it was a miracle that he survived. We couldn't see how the wheels could just fly off.  Now we know.

We had a similar thing told to us.  We had our bus in for some work, and the shop told us the previous person that had worked on it had put it back together wrong and the lug bolts were on the wrong side so the lugs could have spun loose.

Don and Cary
GMC 4107
Neoplan AN340

[gus]

The PO put my front hubs on reversed.

I didn't notice this for a while but since I've had no problems I decided to leave them until I remove the front hubs. Then I'll reverse the hubs.

[Busted Knuckle]

The PO put my front hubs on reversed.

I didn't notice this for a while but since I've had no problems I decided to leave them until I remove the front hubs. Then I'll reverse the hubs.

Gus,
Could you give more detail, I don't quite understand what you mean reversed. I'm not saying yer wrong, but I don't recall it making a difference side to side on most models. (but once I thought I was wrong, and it turned out I was mistaken! )
  BK 

[luvrbus]

Can any of you guys tell me why there are left and right threads on the wheels I know the reason for the drive axle but not for the tag, boogie or front wheels


good luck

[jackhartjr]

Clifford, I hope ya'll don't flame me too much for this but I always assumed it had to do with the rotation and them not being able to back off.
Jack

[JackConrad]

BK,
    I think Gus means that the hub on the left side has right hand threads.
Luvr,
   When I worked as a mechanic many years ago (mid-late 60s) for a Dodge, Plymouth, Chrysler dealer all the Mopar csrs had left hand threads on the left side. I was told that his was to help insure the wheel nuts stayed tight. Jack

[luvrbus]

Jack and Jack I was always told the same but a wheel rolling in the same direction on either side how does it work I am serious about this it never made sense to me using that theory all would need to be left handed threads 



good luck

[Dreamscape]

Clifford, I believe it has to do with the starting torque on the wheel. I wonder if this applies to drag racing or NASCAR?

What is done on new coaches?

Paul

[Ed Hackenbruch]

A friend and i were out one very dark nite driving his dad's new 65 Dodge Coronet. We had a flat tire and no flashlite. Took us 20 minutes to figure out why we couldn't get the damn lug nuts off the wheel on that side.