Wheel studs are too short! What to do....

Had to pull tow my travel trailer 5 mi in town to a RV dealer for some work.. When I got back 1 lug and stud was gone on the D.S.rear, looked at the P.S.rear also one missing... this is #3&4 of the broke studs so Im done with stock studs. Looking for someone who knows what is the longest I can go on the studs just changing the studs only.. Thanks,Jim

 

WTMF?! Why they hell did the studs break off? Did you recently have the wheels off the truck? Is it possible that you or someone else improperly torqued them down when the wheels were put back on?

I keep reading about these damn studs breaking off. I remove my wheels often and am afraid that the constant torquing of the lugs will eventually weaken my shit.

 

I don't know the answer. Sorry Jim.

 

^^^^Not this from the tire and wheel man^^^^

 

LOL

 

Stock rear studs are,1.736 in. ...Front's are 1.575 in. Next size up are 2.165in.---2.34in.---2.6in,,,, The last I know are too long for stock wheels..

 

Where did you get this info from? for the stock lengths that is.

 

First post,, This thread under,, Hunt4Steve

 

If you are going to replace wheel studs check out BILDON for some good hardened wheel studs. I run these on my BMW (to replace the factory wheel bolts) and they are good strong items. Factory studs work fin on my Tacoma (so far).

 

Those of you that are running the "Matrix studs"- any issues? Running them on all 4 corners? I'm just curious if they would be too long for the rear wheels...

 

Mine are working out fine. No issues. Running 16x8 rims with 35" tires

 

I was pulling out of my paved driveway this evening and my passenger front wheel came off. All 6 studs sheared off. Tires were last rotated by the dealer 200 miles ago? I'll post details on my after market tires, wheels, lugs and stock studs along with pics ASAP. After reading this thread I'm going to replace all the studs, all the lugs and check the torque on a monthly basis and especially after the dealer does anything. This could have been bad!

 

I put 04 Matrix studs on my 96 and so far so good. Only issue is the fronts didn't sink in the way the rear's did. I'm going to pull the front back apart and see if the sank after I torqued the wheel on. I ordered mine from rockauto.com for 62 bucks shipped for Dormans. After I ordered I realized I could have ordered 2 packs of 10 then 4 individual. Would have been cheaper. Great site by the way. I ordered my CS 144 alternator through them for 83 bucks shipped. That's the 140 amp. That install went really well too.

Update on this: LOL! Don't do what I did and use the same Matrix studs you use on the front for the rear. The "teeth" toward the base of the stud is not long enough and the base is also not quite wide enough to keep these things from slipping forever. I had them in for only a few months and found 3 out of 6 studs per side slipping (When I torqued down on the lug nut the stud would spin even though it was fully seated). I went down to O Reilly's and got some Dorman stock ones and installed those. The fronts are really the big problem anyway when you're talking about this mod.

 

I replaced the front wheel studs with the Dorman ones that are a half inch or so longer, worked out great!

123autoparts.com #610-463

 

Looks great ! What kind of lug nuts are those?

 

Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for! Man, so simple...Toyota Matrix wheel studs...who'd a'thunk?

 

I had this same issue. I went offroading once i got new wheels put on and the studs were to short and they didnt say anything just shoved them on there. So they replaced them with the studs that come on a TX baja tacoma and those are slightly longer and they are the perfect length for what i needed

 

Okay, my studs came in yesterday and I knocked this out this morning. Here's how it went:

Here's what I started with. I'm running Procomp Series 97 15x8 wheels with 3.75" BS. I had to get .25" wheel spacers from Wheeler's for these wheels to clear the brake caliper. In retrospect, I should have gotten the wheels from Wheeler's as well, but I wanted 3.75" BS and Wheeler's only had 4" BS in 15x8s. These probably would have been fine, but I wanted to run 33x13.50 R15 Super Swamper LTBs and I thought I would need the extra BS to clear the UCA. Anyway, on with the mod...



So after removing the tire, I removed the brake caliper and hung it from the UCA with a piece of .032 safety wire. Then I removed the brake rotor.



To get the old wheel studs out, I used a rivet gun/air hammer with a flush set milled flat. Here you see the difference in length. It's actually more than the .5" everyone has been saying. The new stud is 15mm longer. That's a little bit over 9/16", roughly 19/32". This length is in the shank area, so if you aren't running wheel spacers or thick wheels, be careful that you can tighten the lug nuts down all the way, especially if your spare isn't on the same type of wheel as your regular tires are. On mine, the shank stuck through the wheel spacer, but the wheel was thick enough for this not to be a problem.



Because of their length, the new wheel studs require a lot more room to install. Luckily, Toyota was kind enough to provide a spot to accommodate this on my 1st Gen. There is a dimple in about the 11 o'clock (driver's side. 1 o'clock on the passenger) position in the dust shield that allows ample clearance to slip the longer stud through. Not certain if it's there on a 2nd Gen.



To press the stud in, a previous poster suggested using a ball joint press. This is probably healthier for the stud, I guess, but for me, it seemed like there was a bigger PITA getting all that junk aligned. I just used a couple of old nuts that were big enough to slip over the stud and an old lug nut. I tightened it down with my impact until the head of the stud pulled down against the hub flange. My impact was only rated at 75 or 80 ft-lbs @ 90psi when it was new. It's been badly abused so it's doubtful that it would even produce that these days. Anyway, factory torque calls out for 83 ft-lbs on the lug nuts, so I'm fairly confident the studs can take the stress of using the lug nuts to pull them in.



And that's the finished product. Much safer. Be careful that your lug nuts don't bottom out before tightening the wheel down though. Mine are close, but I hand tightened one down on a new stud and it only had about 2 threads exposed when it bottomed out so they should be okay.

Thanks again to the OP for providing us with this important fix!

 

No Baka ,
Nice job on your write up. Good info.
++ on making sure your lugs don't bottom out on the stud before giving enough clamping pressure. Check your wheel lug wholes for signs of being rounded out or the stud from being grooved by the wheel. I lost a wheel @ 35mph because my wheel was shifting enough to wear grooves in the studs until they broke. Not on a Taco!

 

Thanks! Hope it helps someone out. TW has been a gold mine of information for me, so it'd be nice to give back.