[s-cars] Stripped wheel bolt

[Scott Justusson]

 With all due respect, luck is either a tythe to the church after the fact, or a higher power determined it's just not your time.  In 30+ years of motorsport competition, hundreds of track days, I've seen the 'other' side of what you speak.   Wheel bolts overtorqued, undertorqued, no longer stretching, all causing catastrophic wheel failure, luckily I've also only witnessed car and ego damage from it. The rule is this hack is negligence and unsafe, any exceptions are just stories where fate didn't meet with stupidity.  Ignore your luck and supidity for a second, and think liability.  Helicoil that hub, and it fails, or put 4 bolts instead of 5, and Lucifer's Law (Murphy's dark side) says the accident caused 4 world famous neurosurgeons on the way to a conference in a rental car, to perish.  When the insurance company does the investigation, your life as you know it ends.  As I learned years ago in a memorable corporate risk management seminar, the direct quote was, blatant negligence is defined as when the living envy the dead.

This isn't a debate, the comment of timesert better than helicoil just adds to the absurdity.  If a time-sert hub came into your shop, what would you do?  Thankfully I've never seen one, but I've certainly read the trades that says I'm liable if I see this and do nothing.  I lurk the forums to hopefully head off this confrontation.  I won't say it's dumb, I say it's stupid to even speak of the exception?

Any insert repair into a hub is dumb, stupid, and consciously choosing an all-in position of 'bad stuff'.  I'm not impressed with your story, because you *chose* to be that idiot at the expense of risk to your family and fellow competitors.   

I really don't care to hear more?

Thanks

Scott J




-----Original Message-----
From: Cody Forbes <cody at 5000tq.com>
To: Scott Justusson <qshipq at aol.com>
Cc: haroldmccomas <haroldmccomas at comcast.net>; s-car-list <s-car-list at audifans.com>
Sent: Mon, Mar 26, 2012 9:03 pm
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Stripped wheel bolt


While I agree with not using an insert on a hub, I disagree with the 
proclamation that missing a wheel bolt is certain to end in bad stuff. Do I 
suggest leaving one off just for the hell of it? No. However...

I'm not proud of this, but when I bought my black 5ktq it only had 4 bolts in 
the left rear wheel and it took me about 6 years before I got around to buying a 
tap to fix the damaged first thread. In the meantime I *added* about 400hp, put 
over 50,000 miles on the car, did maybe 100 drag strip passes with full on 
smokey diff-locks-on all wheel burnouts, and multiple track days - once the 
speedometer even found its way to where the digits stopped. See I had BBS wheels 
with center caps and simply forgot about that missing bolt and nobody in tech 
ever bothered to pull the center cap to check them. I changed the tires a couple 
times and each time would have a "oh sh*t" moment and SWEAR I would buy a tap 
next time a tool guy came in to the shop, then I'd forget and go on my merry way 
for a year or so. It wasn't until I got different wheels without covers, and 
mature quite a lot during a time when the car sat for about two years 
surrounding my sons birth, did I remember and finally fix it. Like I said, I'm 
not pleased with myself for the happenings, but it happened and never once did I 
have an issue.

-Cody
(Sent from my phone, if a word doesn't fit blame Siri)

On Mar 26, 2012, at 11:36 AM, Scott Justusson <qshipq at aol.com> wrote:

> 
> IME, when the first bolt falls out, the others are usually not far behind.  
The reason is, when the a rotor is not evenly clamped, it usually manifests 
failure identification by subsequently removing the 'other' wheel bolts "without 
the aid of wrenches" (-tm Pizzo).  Er, for the very same reason every wheel 
should be tightened with a torque wrench?  Used S car hubs are readily available 
for 50 bux, I put a few in my 4kq 5 bolt conversion at less than that price....
> 
> I'm up for creative fixes, but an insert into a wheel hub?!  For real?!  IMO, 
that's just a sure way to get me out of lurk mode reading the stupidity of that 
recommendation.
> 
> SJ
>