New wheels! Are they fitting correctly?

[Frosty]

Received and installed my new wheels.The steel wheels fit on a ring on the hub. They were quite stuck to the hub and took some wiggling to remove. These alloy's just rest on the bolts. Is this acceptable? Does this compromise my GVWR? Are everyone else's aftermarket wheels the same? Am I a worry wort?

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[Frosty]

Here is how they look with the caps on. Sorry about the salt.

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[Frosty]

The acorn nuts (I have never heard that term before) would not fit under the covers. So I have one lock nut and 4 reg lugs. I will be getting some never-seize or some such thing on there but they should be sealed from the weather by the covers.Hubcentric rings eh? I will head down tomorrow and ask about them. So I was right to wonder about this?

[Frosty]

quote:There are lug nuts that do not have the top piece and the thread continues all the way through with out stopping and the wheel stud will show. Do not drive too much with those nuts on there. Those are lugs you have on there right? they are tapered on the ends?If so, then you should be fine.Yes my lug nuts are as you described. I haven't noticed any speed wobbles, but I don't go over 40 mph in town.I will get those washer thingies tonight or tomorrow morning. It seemed to me that the weight of the car was being transferred from the hub to the wheel on that ring of the hub rather than the bolts. The web pages you offered refer to correctly centering the wheel using the rings and not so much the weight transfer.The bolts can handle 135 to 185 pounds each can they?

[NovaResource]

The centering rings don't carry the weight, they just make sure the wheel is centered on the hub so the wheel studs are centered in the holes in the wheel and so the wheel doesn't wobble up and down.

[Stang2Vibe]

Wouldn't a lug bolt with a tapered end accomplish the same thing? And I was told that the old-style "acorn" type bolts were usually ONLY for use on steel wheels. Several of my past cars came standard with some type of aluminum wheels that had the longer lug bolts (that the lug does not pass all the way through) with tapered ends that centered the wheel on the lugs. I never had the hubcentric rings or anything installed and never had any problems. Even after switching to aftermarket wheels.

[cohocarl]

quote:Wouldn't a lug bolt with a tapered end accomplish the same thing?NO! See: http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=923quote:I never had the hubcentric rings or anything installed and never had any problems. Even after switching to aftermarket wheels.I hadn't had major problems before either, but if you notice it shaking a little more than it should at higher speeds expecially, might want to check the centering rings. It REALLY helped mine.Carl

[Frosty]

Thanks for the tip guys. Canadian Tire does not carry such a thing. I'll have to do some more searching. Haven't had the car up to speed to see if I have a problem. Found this explanation that helps as well. From: http://www.inexpro.com/legend_temple/fa ... .html#10.3 What's a hubcentric wheel? Why do I need hubcentric adapters? OEM wheels are hubcentric. They are produced in such a way that they fit snugly on the hub (wheel mount location). The hub has a ridge on it that mates to the backside of the wheel. This is done to ensure proper centering of the wheel on the hub. Aftermarket wheels are usually overbored on the backside for different car applications. Special adapter rings are manufactured for individual cars to ensure their wheel is hub-centered when mounted. If not properly centered, you can have a steering wheel shimmy.

[Frosty]

Don't think hubcentric adapters are very high on my list. I went out at lunch to the expressway and tested the wheels at warp 3, no speed wobble, shimmy or shake No worries.

[Stang2Vibe]

quote:I hadn't had major problems before either, but if you notice it shaking a little more than it should at higher speeds expecially, might want to check the centering rings. It REALLY helped mine.CarlAhh ha! Maybe that was why I would get that shaking on my Mustang at highway speeds! It felt like a wheel was out of balance. It would shake only between 62-64 MPH. Above or below that, I never noticed a problem. I really just thought that a tire was out of balance. Maybe that's what that was!

[MadBill]

Centering rings are good insurance if you can get them for your application, but not all OEM wheels have hub location (e.g., VW Beetles) and many aftermarket ones do not. As long as there is good location via tapered seat nuts, there is usually no problem, as the clamping force of the nuts greatly exceeds any road loads. A friend of mine had a cheapo set with straight shank nuts and no hub centering on his Alfa Romeo. He had to kind of move them around until they seemed to be running true and then test for vibrations. Not too satisfactory!

[Frosty]

quote:....there is usually no problem, as the clamping force of the nuts greatly exceeds any road loads. ...That helps a lot I was trying to get my head around the physics of the wheel slamming against pot holes, the force transferring from the wheel to lug nut to the hub, and I was thinking that something has got to give and that the centering ring should take some of the force. Because there is so little of the lug nut actually under stress it makes the likelyhood of breakage less, yes? No? Never heard of a lug nut break. A fellow with a PT cruiser had the hub come off the spindle once (totally unrelated I know).Thanks to all for listening to my concerns.Here is "frosty" with the wheels installed.

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[rasermon]

Looks great Frosty. Did you tint your windows yourself?

[millster]

Looks great!!

[Frosty]

Yes I did tint my own windows. So far I have only applied 5% limo privacy black. It was fun and relatively easy. Edit: Make that... See http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id ... 5217#25217 It is a work in progress though. I screwed up the back window, the wiper motor and shock bolts threw me off, so I will redo it. The front windows are not done yet. The stores offer I think 35% which seems dark to me. I would like to do a border of 5% for the top 9" to a foot then 35% the rest of the way. But I will talk to a cop about this first.The front window will have a top border of 5% for a foot as well.I need the temperature to stay above 4 celcius for 3 days which should happen in a month or so.

[Frosty]

It is my neighbourhood, but my house is down the hill a bit. When my house was built it probably housed servants for the people who lived in the houses you see.

[MadBill]

Quote> That helps a lot I was trying to get my head around the physics of the wheel slamming against pot holes, the force transferring from the wheel to lug nut to the hub, and I was thinking that something has got to give and that the centering ring should take some of the force. Because there is so little of the lug nut actually under stress it makes the likelyhood of breakage less, yes? No? (Uh, oh! technobabble ahead!)Surprisingly, the road loads don't actually transfer to the nuts! What happens is that when you torque the nuts to spec., it stretches the studs and applies a tension of maybe 40-50% of the Ultimate Tensile Strength of the stud material. In the case of our 12 mm studs, this would be around 35,000 psi, and with an area of ~ 0.12 sq. in., the clamping force would be about 4,000 pounds. Multiply by five studs and assume a coefficient of friction between the wheel contact surface and the hub of 0.5, and you find it would take a force of roughly FIVE TONS to shift the wheel relative to the hub!(The forces generated by cornering are similarily much less than the "pre-load" in the studs.)In fact, as long as the nuts are torqued to spec, vertical road loads and impacts won't even be felt by them or the studs; they'll just sit there under the same tensile force as if the car was parked. (Problems arise when the nuts are undertorqued; then the clamping force may be insufficient, and the wheel can shift on the hub, applying bending and/or varying tensile loads to the studs on every revolution, eventually causing fatigue failure and the singing of that famous C & W refrain: "You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel!"

[VibeSalsa]

Hi Frosty!Your Vibe looks very nice with this new rims! I have an indiscreet question... how much did you pay for these wheels ? If you want to answer...

[Frosty]

Thanks for that MadBill! I took the Vibe out on some bad gravel roads and broken pavement. No trouble! The ride was great. I hope to take it on a timed rally on some bush roads if I can get my act together to test your assurances.

[Frosty]

quote:Hi Frosty!Your Vibe looks very nice with this new rims! I have an indiscreet question... how much did you pay for these wheels ? If you want to answer... Thanks! They were $223 U.S. a set. See http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=3186 My seller's stuff can be found here http://cgi6.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... =3&rows=25 He currently has nothing listed but he said he wanted my pics for his future ads which would be very cool.

[Frosty]

My seller has a 17" set on going for $10.50 currently.http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... 2412333729

[VibeSalsa]

Thanks for all the info Frosty! Oops, they are at 152.50 $ now...