Handy Car Wheel Fitting Aid

[brianhw]

I have difficulty lifting wheels and trying to align them with the studs so I made one of these simple but very effective fitting aids. It's small enough to keep in the car in case of a puncture. No skill as such required in making it.
Here' the link:-

[mklotz]

First off, the wheel doesn't have "studs" (and that's the problem). I've never seen a car where the tires were mounted with bolts as shown. Most cars have real studs which serve the same purposes of support and alignment that your device provides.

[brianhw]

I'm surprised when you say that you've never seen hubs without studs and using bolts instead. Here (in U.K.) a great many cars are like this.

[Frank S]

I'm guessing many on this forum are just too young to remember that cars particularly Chrystler corp. had wheel bolts and not studs in the 1940s Nash Ramblers were the same way Also Volkswagen beetles and micro bus, Packard from early on through late 40s and Buick in the mid 50s I think Dodge even tried it again ion one of their compact models in the 2010's At least Chrysler and Packard were smart enough to add an alignment pin sticking out from the drum to fit in a small hole in the rim
The thing about wheel lug Bolts is you can't install them upside down

[ductape]

Lug bolts are somewhat commonly used on trailers and farm equipment in the US, in addition to what Frank S said above.
Chrysler/DeSoto and some others also used left-handed thread on the left side of the vehicle for a few years. Very frustrating.

[Frank S]

Lug bolts are somewhat commonly used on trailers and farm equipment in the US, in addition to what Frank S said above.
Chrysler/DeSoto and some others also used left-handed thread on the left side of the vehicle for a few years. Very frustrating.

The only part that made it frustrating was not all cars used left hand thread on their cars. Semi-truck manufactures adopted the idea of lefthand thread early on with the idea that the lug nuts would not have a tendency to loosen if they were threaded so they would tighten in the direction of the rolling direction of the tire
It must have some merit because I have had a trailer come in where the hubs had been installed on the wrong side the driver complaining that he couldn't keep the lug nuts tight on one of his axles of a trailer he had just bought I noticed that 1 axle had the hubs switched side to side I swapped them and his problem went away

[bob_3000]

I've never seen a car where the tires were mounted with bolts as shown. Most cars have real studs which serve the same purposes of support and alignment that your device provides.

Then you have never worked on or owned a European car.

To the original poster:

This is a brilliant tool, I can't believe it never occurred to me, I'm looking forward to next falls summer tire - winter tire exchange!

[bob_3000]

Lug bolts are somewhat commonly used on trailers and farm equipment in the US, in addition to what Frank S said above.
Chrysler/DeSoto and some others also used left-handed thread on the left side of the vehicle for a few years. Very frustrating.

More than a few years actually, they were still doing it in the seventies.

[nova_robotics]

Yup. This happens a lot with European and German crap. My girlfriend's Audi and my Porsche 911 are both like this. Hateful things. Strangely enough, my old 928 and 944 both had proper wheel studs. So they USED to do it correctly, had a brain aneurysm somewhere in the 1990s, then made all their wheels stupid. Go figure. Funny side note, if you ever get a chance to pull the wheels off an old Porsche 944, do it. They use aluminum or magnesium lugs. It feels like they're made of air. It's absolutely bizarre holding them in your hand.

The absolute best part is the Audi HAS FLOATING ROTORS. Think getting the damn rim on the car is hard if you don't have wheel studs? Now try getting the wheel on, plus a rotor that spins out of alignment of the bolt holes every time you put the wheel on. Whatever engineer decided this was a good idea should be shot with a ball of their own ****.

[bob_3000]

Yup. This happens a lot with European and German crap. My girlfriend's Audi and my Porsche 911 are both like this. Hateful things. Strangely enough, my old 928 and 944 both had proper wheel studs. So they USED to do it correctly, had a brain aneurysm somewhere in the 1990s, then made all their wheels stupid. Go figure. Funny side note, if you ever get a chance to pull the wheels off an old Porsche 944, do it. They use aluminum or magnesium lugs. It feels like they're made of air. It's absolutely bizarre holding them in your hand.

The absolute best part is the Audi HAS FLOATING ROTORS. Think getting the damn rim on the car is hard if you don't have wheel studs? Now try getting the wheel on, plus a rotor that spins out of alignment of the bolt holes every time you put the wheel on. Whatever engineer decided this was a good idea should be shot with a ball of their own ****.

Then you clearly would benefit from some of these...I just ordered a set, I never knew they were a thing, driving Saabs for forty years.


https://www.amazon.ca/OEMTOOLS-24233.../dp/B01FYG6AJ4