Club 80-90 Forums

Hi,
Just bought my first VW yesterday (14" '89 1.6TD Syncro), and had the not so pleasurabe experiance of a wheel coming off on the M25!!! It was fitted with Audi alloy wheels and big mud tyre (not sure what size). The previous owner had been using these wheels with no issues for a good while, but the nice RAC man pointed out to me that the studs the wheel nuts screw onto were not long enough (the nut screws on about 8mm, but leaves ~5mm off the stud). After being towed to a tyre place in uxbridge and fitting the spare set of steel rims on, the guys at the tyre place thought that the nuts not fully screwing on wasn't an issue, and is common on some Audi cars.

What are other peoples experiance with this? Do the standard studs need to be removed & longer ones fitted to use certain types alloys, or is it OK to just have the wheel nuts ~2/3 of the way on?
Hopefully i've just got the problems out of the way early, and can enjoy my van from now on...
Ben

Do you mean that the thread doesn't stick through the nut? If so i would fit longer studs
lloyd

yep, the thread is about 3mm too short to stick through the nut.

longer studs then

Thats the reply i was expecting. I guess the steel rims and road tyres will have to stay on for now, replacing stubs doesn't sound like a simple task, especially on the rear

The rears are easy, it's the fronts that are abit more involved but not really hard. You will need new front barings fitted and pressed in though.

Jed

and the seals for the front bearings as they dont come with the bearing. my studs dont come fully through the nut even though they are the longer studs. this is due to spacers and wheel offset. never had a problem with mine and i often drive it very hard.