Loose wheels

What about using a tension wrench and low strength locktite? Genuine steel wheels are usually the best!! Michael

Would have to be an incompatibility between nuts and rims it seems - I've been checking my hubs on my last two cars, a camper and now the van over 15 years on general bush travel and can't recall one ever coming loose (factory hubs all).

NO... shouldn't happen.

Many thousands of ks, often with sunraysias and it's never happened to me...
except when my son the trainee tyre fitter [one week in] rotated the wheels for me and put the nuts on wrong way round!!!!! 12 years ago

George50,

Have come across this a number of times in the bush.
Corrugations can rattle everything loose, including wheel nuts.
Correctly torqued though, does go along way to preventing this from occurring. The correct nuts to matches the rims is very important. You won't be abel to use the factory nuts in most cases with different aftermarket rims.
My sister runs a tyre business in regional WA and rarely a day goes passed where people don't come in with the same issue.....torque settings and wrong nuts are the issue.

BW

Please define "flat stud cutouts"

All of the Sunraysia style wheels that I have ever seen, have the (industry standard I believe) 60º taper seats..
I don't understand what you mean by "flat stud cutouts" ???

As long as matching nuts (to suit rim seat taper) are used, and correctly torqued, there should be no issues...

That said, I got into the habit long ago, of regularly checkin' me nuts....
More so on any trip..

45-odd years driving (and many thousands km on rough tracks), and I am yet to have any issues whatsoever with loose wheel nuts.... (prob'ly jinxed meself with that comment ;-))


:)

George, Have a read of these two;


Replacing the standard Toyota wheel studs and wheel nuts

Review of Speedie sunraysi steel rims

and a watch of this;




Cheers Mick

OK , I'll check the taper on the nuts , but what I meant about flat cutouts was the rims sit flat on the hubs everywhere , not like the factory rims which have a raised section around the studs and hub which would flex against the hub and nuts and I assume give a better grip. By the way I give the nuts a bloody good heave .

I had an interesting and educational experience. I had been on an outback tour using my steel wheels which I keep for off-road trips instead of the Prado's alloys.

On return I was home in suburbia for a while and swapped the steelies out and replaced them with the OEM alloys. My next trip was all blacktop, so off I went on the alloys. I tow a 2200kg van.

To cut a long story short, the left rear wheel parted company from the Prado about 600km up the Pacific Hwy. Luckily I had felt something like a strong crosswind gust, or the buffet from a passing truck, but there was no wind and no passing trucks, so I had decided to stop and check. Just as well, because the wheel fell of as I was slowing at about 20kph in the breakdown lane. Up until then I had been doing 90.

The reason?

Well, I put it down to the different contact pattern between the steelies and the alloys on the hub and dirt under the alloy that fell off.

During the outback trip there was a small accumulation of dust and grit around where the steel wheels contacted the hubs.

When I swapped the wheels over, the first one I did was the left rear. I didn't wire brush the hub, I just installed the alloy and torqued it up.

When I did the other three I thought it would be a good idea to brush the hubs and wheels, which I did, but I didn't go back to the left rear, remove it, brush it and re-install. Laziness, I guess.

As I always do after changing wheels, after about 100km I re-torqued all the wheels, including the one that later fell off. There was no untoward looseness in any whell at that point. To no avail, apparently.

What I think happened was there was a small amount of grit under LH rear wheel that allowed the nuts to loosen, even after being re-torqued and, as they say, the rest is history.

This has been a big wake-up call. I now carry a wire brush as part of my wheel-changing kit and religiously use it to clean hubs and mating surfaces of the replacement wheel.

Cheers

I have had one sunraysia rim and a split rim give way but on the trailer. I put it down to - not checking the studs enough times on a long trip and the weight of the trailer when I have given it a flick with the steering wheel for some reason (road kill or such) puts undue strain sideways on the trailer wheels giving a chance for studs to stretch and nuts to loosen.

Also I was running aftermarket nuts and have a suspicion they where not as good a quality as OEM.

Had sunraysias on the previous car without a problem - well not quite no problems. When I first bought them I found on picking up my car they had fitted 8in wide rims even though not what I had ordered. They assured me that would be alright. In 4 weeks I had split 3 sunraysia rims along the the bend that the bead locks onto. After that the shop replaced them with 7.5 sunraysias and of a reputable brand.

Cheers

Serendipity

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We have completely lost a wheel on our patrol wagon towing a fully loaded camper trailer on a back road in south WA due to the studs snapping on new years day 2011, my parter did very well not to put us on the lid. The factory studs on the alloy rims had a "saftey notice" so we found out afterwards on the rear passanger wheel - but Nissan wanted to have no part of it and said because they didnt issue a "recall" they had no responsibility even though every second person who owns a GQ wagon you talk to it has happened to. Somewhat less with GU's but still an issue - so we found out. Did a few thousand $$ worth of dammage - was 3 months off getting rating 1 on our iinsurance of course....so my premium is rediculous now!.

We also almost lost the rear passanger wheel on our patrol GQ ute a few years ago. That one was due to a misaligned tyre when the nuts were put on.

We now carry complete sets of spare studs for car and trailer! (Try finding Nissan Patrol GU Rear wheel studs on new years day half way between 2 little country towns! Drove home on 2 correct studs and 4 bolts from an old holden head!

Thanks for all the helpful replies guys. I've had another look at the trims and nuts etc. . The rims are made in Brasil , but apart from the centre hole being about 4mm too large in diameter and not supporting weight on the hub centre as the factory rims do , I see no problems , the stud holes are tapered as are the nuts as supplied. The studs are threaded ok to allow for correct seating. The problem must have been [1] rims were new and I didn't file off the powdercoat or clean the hubs correctly . [2] Nuts were not torqued after installation. [3] 5000Km of corrugations, potholes,etc. and no thread lock means you should bloody CHECK them regularly ! Adios .