Welded nut alignment method

[thehomeengineer]

Hi All
I have fabricated a couple of wheel hubs for a trailer mover I am currently building. The flange that bolts to the wheel rim is stock 10mm thick steel plate, machined down to 8mm thick. The bolts I intend to use are M12x1.75 commercially purchased wheel bolts. So to increase the thickness I decided to weld some standard nuts to the backside of the flange to give more thread engagement.

The holes in the flange were drilled tapping size for M12x2.75 (10.2mm) A standard steel bolt was then turned down to the core diameter to be a good fit in the drilled holes. The first nut was then screwed on to this bolt with about 7mm of the core diameter protruding out so this could locate in the 10.2mm holes ensuring that the nut thread wound be concentric to the hole. Then welded in place and the bolt removed. After all 8 nuts were welded in place a tap was used from the nut side to extend the thread into the flange.

Of course, there are other methods I could have used. But the this method is quick and easy and gives good thread engagement .

The following photos will hopefully help my explanation.

M12 bolt with the front turned down to core drilling size 10.2mm

Nut ready to be located in hole.

Nut welded to flange.

Tapping down through the nut and into the flange.

Thank you for viewing and I hope this method is of interest.

The Home Engineer