When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Has anyone replaced their wheel studs on the C8? What’s involved? I’ve done it on my C6 to add longer ARP studs and it was a pita. You have to remove the lower control arm ball joint. Is the C8 the same, worse, easier? Thx.
Has anyone replaced their wheel studs on the C8? What’s involved? I’ve done it on my C6 to add longer ARP studs and it was a pita. You have to remove the lower control arm ball joint. Is the C8 the same, worse, easier? Thx.
Yep PIA. Only suggestion is DON"T lub the stud or nut! That can essentially double the 140 ft-lb "dry torque" effective load on stud!
I’ve replaced with ARP’s. It’s a timely matter. The fronts are obviously easier. Remove brakes and then the hub. Which is way over torqued from the factory. The rear….. is a real pain. After removing the brakes, all arms, sway bar, and coilover the hub would not come off the CV axle with even the right tools. At least for me. But pulling the whole axle out was simply. Then I removed the hub in a vice with air punch. So for most this is probably intimidating. I also had just a little trouble with the passenger side axle (long side) getting the splines to line up and getting the snap ring all lined up. But haven’t had an issue. No reasons to fear these DCT’s. These are the only pics I have. The studs are easy to knock out and I have a 12 ton press for the rest. ARP’s are usually tight.
Last edited by NoMatter; Oct 13, 2021 at 09:06 PM.
I'm both in awe of those who would try this. And curious why you would? I've owned 50 cars +/- over the years and never once considered my lug bolts to be sub optimal.
I'm both in awe of those who would try this. And curious why you would? I've owned 50 cars +/- over the years and never once considered my lug bolts to be sub optimal.
I did it on my C6 so I could safely add 12mm hub-centric spacers and push the wheels out a little further. I’d like to do the same on the C8. I don’t trust the extended shoulder nuts and I’m not willing to go with the bolt-on spacers.
Has anyone replaced their wheel studs on the C8? What’s involved? I’ve done it on my C6 to add longer ARP studs and it was a pita. You have to remove the lower control arm ball joint. Is the C8 the same, worse, easier? Thx.
I needed to replace one in the rear on my C6. Even though everyone said it couldn’t be done, I did it without removing any parts, save for the wheel. Drilled a hole in the dust plate and fished it through it. That stupid internal emergency break spring gave me grief though. Don’t wish to do it again.
^^^
I said in post #2 "be careful about lubricating the studs!" Said that for a reason as in a recent Thread a poster justified why he always lubs studs. Frankly can understand why some living in places like I had for 7 years, NE OH where road salt corrodes studs and lug nuts might think Anti-Seize was the answer. BUT be careful and DON'T use the specified 140 ft-lbs!
See pic below. In words, if a dry stud/lug torque of 140 ft-lbs is applied and a light oil applied the bolt, the bolt load could be TWICE what is specified. With a Moly Lub over 3 times! Anti-Seize is typically like light oil but some could be more. It's a reasonable assumption that the load safety factor is 2:1 so you're close to the breaking load! Bit tricky to define exactly but some tables suggest reducing specified torque 50% if lubricant of any kind is used.
Bottom Line: If you don't want to replace a wheel stud or pay for it to be done (looks very expensive) DON'T lubricate or use Anti-Seize!
Two typical charts. The load depends on the stud size etc. But a design safety factor of 2 times is a reasonable assumption. So the stud could be way overloaded and break!
^^^
I said in post #2 "be careful about lubricating the studs!" Said that for a reason as in a recent Thread a poster justified why he always lubs studs. Frankly can understand why some living in places like I had for 7 years, NE OH where road salt corrodes studs and lug nuts might think Anti-Seize was the answer. BUT be careful and DON'T use the specified 140 ft-lbs!
See pic below. In words, if a dry stud/lug torque of 140 ft-lbs is applied and a light oil applied the bolt, the bolt load could be TWICE what is specified. With a Moly Lub over 3 times! Anti-Seize is typically like light oil but some could be more. It's a reasonable assumption that the load safety factor is 2:1 so you're close to the breaking load! Bit tricky to define exactly but some tables suggest reducing specified torque 50% if lubricant of any kind is used.
Bottom Line: If you don't want to replace a wheel stud or pay for it to be done (looks very expensive) DON'T lubricate or use Anti-Seize!
Two typical charts. The load depends on the stud size etc. But a design safety factor of 2 times is a reasonable assumption. So the stud could be way overloaded and break!
The company I used to work for did an extensive test series of thread lubricants and the effect on preload. Lubricants containing PTFE (Teflon) generally gave the highest preload vs torque. The interesting thing was that silicone grease used for lubricating o-rings was practically an anti-lube. So if you feel you really need to apply a thread lubricant on threads that have a dry torque specification, try silicone grease.
^^^ Don't know about silicon but learned a lot about lubrication when I managed an R&D lab developing welding materials and shielding gas. Our Lab took over the plant manufacturing development effort, most was production of steel welding wire from 7/32 hot rolled rod to as small as 0.023 wire. Understand why my Dad always used soap on a screw to decrease torque required! Oil, for example, in that case does little! Yep at very high pressures the soap liquifies and is a much better lubricate than even petroleum based grease! In fact, at the time, US Steel (where we bought a lot of hot rolled rod) had division selling drawing soaps with some very sharp engineers. The soaps were a power and looked like cloths washing soap!
SIDEBAR
In fact what I called Ivory Flakes was a light soap (sodium stearate) used for final dies and the first dies, say in an 11 die machine, we used what I called Tide (a calcium stearate!) It was much tougher, could stand very high die pressures but was much harder to remove from the surface, essential when making welding wire! They all had various fillers such as lime etc.
PS:Do recall what we were able to do quickly after taking on the task! There were >4 soap compositions we bought. Then you could mix those! In fact the problem one of my engineers quickly discovered Is often drawing machine operators had they own mixtures they thought BEST! We isolated why and had a mixture, where appropriate made for us by the vendor and stopped all custom mixing! Yep always learned a lot from operators and welders! But in the case of drawing wire the worst job was having to restring an 11 die machine if the wire broke. Easy way to avoid that on your shift (screw the next shift) was when you felt what was called a scratch (found with a micrometer turned on the finished wire) was to put the heaviest lub in all dies boxes!
Wheel Stud Replacement?
Don't know about silicon but learned a lot about lubrication when I managed an R&D lab developing welding materials and shielding gas. Our Lab took over the plant manufacturing development effort, most was production of steel welding wire from 7/32 hot rolled rod to as small as 0.023 wire. Understand why my Dad always used soap on a screw to decrease torque required! Oil, for example, in that case does little! Yep at very high pressures the soap liquifies and is a much better lubricate than even petroleum based grease! In fact, at the time, US Steel (where we bought a lot of hot rolled rod) had division selling drawing soaps with some very sharp engineers. The soaps were a power and looked like cloths washing soap!