Cutting Wheel Studs

[STR8 2.8]

Is it dodgy to cut wheel studs down?
I have some that are too long, so i trimmed them with a cut-off wheel.
They got fairly hot obviously, so that makes me worry about their strength. Would their heat treatment be affected by this?

[BeRad]

dodgy? yes haha


id replace them my self they snap and your in some serious trouble.... not worth the risk. not that they would have got to the point where they were glowing red and being that they cooled down slowly to ambient temps they'd probably be ok but i wouldnt have done it in the first place

[airfireman1]

I would not be too concerned, it will take a lot of heat to change the structure of the metal, usually needs to be a cherry re colour. when cutting the studs only a small amount of heat would effect the very last threads and not the ones that the nut will scew up on.
cheers

[STR8 2.8]

yeh im kinda leaning that way, it's not worth the risk.
i only did it because i already had all the nuts/lock nuts, and didnt want to buy deeper wheel nuts.

[Cuzzo]

Either get different nuts or take of the hub and hit them out and replace

Cutting heats them up and can possibly weaken them.

[Aust162]

If you heated them up and quenched them in oil they would probably harden the surface, but may make them brittle. to know for certain you would have to know the type of metal its made from and the temp it reached.

I would probably still use them

[roadsailing]

NOTE: this advice is provided for entertainment purposes only

it should be fine, you will possibly affect the metal at the end of the stud, but you dont need strength here anyway, i would just make sure you cleaned up the thread so you dont screw the nuts (haha, no pun intended)

i wouldn't worry about it, oxy might affect them but the HAZ from a cut off wheel isnt generally very big.

[allencr]

They're fine, unless the only thread engagement is on those last few threads, when it should be at least 1.25 to 1.5 times the stud diameter and the last few thread will have little to no tension at all on them.

Letting a hardend part slowly cool to room temp is called 'annealing', and is done to remove hardening!! You have not removed its temper unless the entire stud was glowing red, not just the edges of the last thread or two.
You can use a file a little bit on both ends to see for yourself how much difference there is.

[oldcorollas]

i agree with the guys above..

anealing occurs above about 720C, and you would need to hold there for some time to have effect..

as long as you still have a few threads left sticking out, should be fine... ish...

[Shifty]

It's not ideal but it's better than having wheel nuts that don't do up

Personally I'd replace them.

[STR8 2.8]

yeh there's plenty of thread left, like 3 times the thread diameter.
but still, i think for my own piece of mind, ill replace them again and get new wheel nuts.

thanks to all!

[bobob]

There are replacement wheel studs sold by a generic company that expect you to cut them down... Either way, I used a hacksaw, oil and a file. I could not find the disc changer tool for the angle grinder! http://www.niceproducts.com.au/

[LeeRoy]

Think of how hot some wheel studs would get being in contact with the brakes (ie discs) ive seen some glowing discs and im sure that their wheel studs would have gotten hotter than from u cutting some.

- Leeroy

[Sam_Q]

use a slitting disk for a quick cut

[YelloRolla]

Ditto to the above - buy some elastic wheels (also called 1mm cut off discs). These heat the metal substantially less than the 3mm versions.

With regards to annealing - quite a few tool steels do not anneal by beaing heated and then allowing to cool, they actually need to be heated, held at temperature to "soak" and then left in the oven to cool (generally over night while the oven is doing nothing else).

If they were heated to a blue colour, then there would be very little concern - this is often in the "temper" zone (depending on alloy and desired temper range of course!).

98cents short of the dollar....

Jase