BACK GROUND: About a week before this incident I had 2” hub centric spacers installed on my fronts to stop my tires from rubbing the control arms. The spacers were steel and bought from a reputable manufacturing company. I had been driving on them all week and had been driving 5 hours in the mountains before this issue. I know the lugs were tight. I don’t know if they were over tight, the studs had been over tightened, there was a manufacturing problem, or too much pressure on the spacers when turning or…

THE STORY: Got home from work and it was time to go to the lake for a little RnR. I packed up the 7 ˝ month pregnant wife, 2 dogs, 24ft boat, all the supplies and headed to the Shuswaps BC. I made a quick stop in Golden to let everyone out to pee. I did a walk around the truck and checked and tightened all my wheels (with the factor tire iron). We all got back into the truck and drove for another 2 hours, when all of a sudden there was a loud “BANG” on the roof of my truck. It sounded like I had taken a hit from a softball size rock, but there were no vehicles in front of me and I had passed the cliff areas. I drove for about another 10 minutes and pulled off at a gas station in Sicamous BC. I hopped out of the truck and climbed into the box to inspect the roof. There was a large golf ball sized dent, just missing the skylight, with paint chipped out of it. I climbed back down into the box and was scratching my head when I noticed 2 lug nuts with sheared studs still attached. Still scratching my head, I jumped out of the box of the truck. I could see the reflection of the truck in the gas station window and that is when the "cold pins n’ needles" feeling came over me. I had to second guess myself as I looked at the passenger driver’s side rim. There were only 2 lugs and studs holding on that tire, 6 lugs and studs had completely sheared off. I could not believe that I had lost 6 lugs and studs and 2 had landed in my box with one hitting my roof. (Also shot off the center cap)

As bad as that situation was…pulling over was the best outcome. If I would have lost one more lug, I would have dropped the passenger front tire, truck would have dropped ditch side and 7000lbs of boat would have came in behind me. Not only that but with all those flying lugs, I could have killed somebody behind me.

I guess just letting you guys know what happened, learn from this and try and have a safe summer.

Any ideas, questions or comments are welcome. I am now trying to figure how to space the fronts without this ever happening again. Anybody running something different or running front spacers without incident?

 

likley the lugs were over tightened, some tire shops don't have a clue what a torque wrench is for... the torque spec's are listed for a reason. never exceed them

 

Overtightened. With that said, I would change rims before I ran a spacer.

 

Explain? Had somebody else saying it was "issues" with that type of rim too.

 

Most likely over-tightened, but possibly a chance of bad bolts- lots of counterfeit Chinese stuff making it into the market.

Glad everybody is OK! That could've been quite a ride .

 

Maybe I just can't see it right? But where is your upper control arm? It looks like it's missing.

 

The unthreaded part of the studs look longer than the rim thickness?
Could the wheel nuts been bottomed out on the treads but didn't hold quite the rim in place, usually studs break if the rim doesn't have enough friction on the hub surface.

 

You are right, but you have to look closer. I have Carli Long Control Arms with my 6" lift. They go from my front diff, back towards the transfercase. Just under where the original control arms would have been

 

The studs are actually fully threaded all the way down into the spacer. The grey part (upper half) you see is a thread/corrosion/oxidation grease (dope) used because they are steel studs and aluminum rims. Basically a "barrier agent" used to stop the 2 metals from touching but also acts like a thread lock.

You also see the "grey dope" on the hub centric part of the spacer. Anywhere the two metals come into contact.

 

I wonder if the dope is the problem. My information has to torque dry - no lubes, oils, grease, anti-sieze, etc. I never had any trouble with aluminum rims corroding on my last truck, but I DID have all eight studs break on the 2006 Driver rear. Lost the wheel at 55-60 mph fully loaded. I don't think the lug nuts held torque well, carrying the heavy load on a really rough stretch of pavement. I read it just takes a little flex of the rim away from the shoulder before it will let loose, putting more stress on the lugs. I can't say how the captive washer style lug nuts work with aluminum, and don't claim to be an expert, but my years of Operator Engineering lead me to believe the lugs loosened slightly under load - keeping track, cornering, something - and let the studs snap. Are there pressed thread marks inside the stud holes of the rim? That might show the direction of force on them.

Another idea, is improperly treated studs, being brittle instead of just hard. I would check the other side carefully, too!

 

Just a silly question but..... It looks like the the rims are designed with a chamfer at the stud hole. Are you using the correct nuts for those wheels?

 

I am still using the original washer style lug nuts that came with those rims. There is no chamfer edge to the stud holes. I feel that is one of my issues with balancing the outer rear dually or just centering the rims in general. It would be nice to have some type of beveled edge with acorn style lug nut to center the rims.

 

Your story has some merritt. Come to think of it there was a long section of washed out pavement, in the tire tracks, of where the semi trucks run. My dually seems to auto drive into those ruts and it takes some effort to keep the truck out. I remember because those ruts throw the truck around a bit. But I did not have any steering vibration.

The studs all snaped towards their upper outward edge (I assume centripetal force) and they all snapped right flush with the spacer. There are no marks on the inside stud holes of the rim showing loose or movement of the lugs. Also the 2 lugs and nuts that I recovered the threads where clean, they were not mushed like something had been moving against them. A very straight, clean break.

As of right now I am not running any spacers up front, untill I get this fixed.

 

Obviously there wasn't any relative movement until the studs broke. That leaves bad metal or over torque as possibilities.

If it were mine, I would get real **** and formal about finding out which it was.

 

Those studs didn't neck down. Lug studs are usually pretty ductile and a stud that's overtightened will show the necking down.

It appears to me that the studs incurred a fatigue failure, which would indicate too little load, not too much.

Either the bolts weren't tightened properly, or the nuts bottomed and ran out of threads.

You didn't have enough preload on the lugs.



Thanks for posting this. There's a reason I never recommend spacers. Spacers are NOT a fix for changing backspacing.