2003 Echo - Broken Wheel Stud - Can I still drive it?

[birchy]

Hey all,

Was putting on the winter tires/rims tonight and wouldn't you know it.. LAST bolt on the LAST wheel broke clean off when I was loosening the lug nut!! Damn Murphy and his law..

Am I able to drive it temporarily with 3 of 4 good studs until I'm able to get it fixed?

[denman]

In theory you'd be OK with 3, BUT since one broke you may assume the others are not 100% either. If you have no other transport go very slowly and get enough studs to replace all 16, and 16 nuts. They're not terribly expensive, but man are they important!. Or get 12 nuts and four lockers so your snows can't be ripped off too easily ... 'tis the season ..

[birchy]

Good points, thanks!

Need to drive it to work and back tomorrow and then I'll git'r'dun on the weekend.

[Yuko]

Originally Posted by birchy

Damn Murphy and his law..

He's not that bad of a guy.

I don't see the reason to replace all the studs. Just replace the broken ones. Fairly easy too. You should be fine with three lugs for now, just make sure they are tight. But don't use any grease or anti-seize on the threads. You can over-torque them and snap more studs off.

[birchy]

The guy that had it before me most likely over-tightened the lugs.

I have a torque wrench.. it's one of the best tools I ever purchased - love the thing! Guesstimated at 75 ft/pounds. Checked the owners manual afterwards (when I remembered it should be in there) and saw it was 76 ft/pounds.. not a bad guess!

[denman]

Originally Posted by birchy

The guy that had it before me most likely over-tightened the lugs.

I have a torque wrench.. it's one of the best tools I ever purchased - love the thing! Guesstimated at 75 ft/pounds. Checked the owners manual afterwards (when I remembered it should be in there) and saw it was 76 ft/pounds.. not a bad guess!

If the previous wheel wrencher knew what we know you wouldn't have had the problem. A lot of them save time by impacting the wheel fasteners on and not using that torque wrench, so it's a good bet that all the studs are damaged to some degree. I saw a car in Montreal a few years ago sitting on a rear brake drum and all five (in his case) studs had broken. Thus my concern about overtorquing.

[Zembonez]

Originally Posted by birchy

The guy that had it before me most likely over-tightened the lugs.

I have a torque wrench.. it's one of the best tools I ever purchased - love the thing! Guesstimated at 75 ft/pounds. Checked the owners manual afterwards (when I remembered it should be in there) and saw it was 76 ft/pounds.. not a bad guess!

A torque wrench is a must. A buddy of mine thought they were "unnecessary" until I had him tighten one of the wheels on his truck by hand using a lug wrench - then check it with the torque wrench. His guesswork varied from 80 pounds to 155 pounds in torque. He uses a torque wrench now.

You can replace just the broken stud and be safe.

[birchy]

So I was able to replace the stud this past weekend (one week longer than I had planned). Took me ~1 hour to do it by myself without ever having done it before... although I did search online for some videos. Hardest part was getting the stud into the hole (insert "that's what she said" joke here) past the thin metal protective plate on the back side of the hub/brake assembly, then getting it flush to the hub. I didn't have much room to pound it in with the hammer, so I ended up having to use the nut and tighten it to pull it flush (saw it done both ways online). Torqued it up and it was good to go.

Now I just have to replace the two serpentine belts because one of them is starting to squeal randomly at idle. Such an annoying sound! (I did find that awesome write up that one of the other members did - with pictures)

PS - Must have been sleep deprived or something when I made the original thread.. Echo is an '04, not an '03! Not that it matters mechanically...