Thread: lug nuts

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Does anyone know the shank length on the lug nuts for the old to true thrust wheels? I have a set that was purchased back around 1973. They will be a 7/16-20. I don't have them to measure right now.

I don't know the length off hand, but I will address something that has to do with your safety. Many rodders will use a blind end nut (you can't see the stud) that are not tapped in the end of the nut, they are only tapped in the tube part of the lug nut. The stress riser is at the interface of the wheel face and the beginning of the hexagonal part of the lug nut, in that corner, so if there are no threads or just a few threads in the hex part, the lug nut can break at that corner and the wheel and tire can exit the vehicle. We had this happen at Firebird when a racer got down on the brakes hard to prevent breaking out of his dial and it is not inconceivable that it could happen on the street/road, in traffic. The racer at Firebird managed to get off the brakes and slide to a stop with the shiny side up, but he was not in traffic, so it could get ugly in a hurry if you had other vehicles around you. Following that incident, no car was allowed to make a pass without threads in the lug nut that reached from the wheel face to at least the diameter of the stud used. All racers using blind lug nuts had to remove one of them for inspection so that we could see that, first, the stud was long enough to engage the hex portion of the lug nut (stock studs used with a much thicker wheels puts the end of the stud way back in the wheel, with no chance of engaging any threads in the hex portion of the nut, the part that actually holds the wheel and tire onto the car) and secondly, that the hex portion of the lug nut was threaded. I fashioned a little "scratcher" from a short piece of clothes hanger wire that I could insert into the blind nut and feel for threads all the way to the end of the lug nut. It took a couple of weeks to get all the non-threaded blind nuts off all the race cars, but we never had another incident after that. This procedure applied to every car that came through the gates that wanted to make a pass, Friday Night Drags grudge racers and all. Most of them converted to open-end lug nuts so that the technical inspector could see at a glance that there were stud threads extending out to the end of the lug nut and life was good. They grew weary of removing a blind nut every time they wanted to race and we grew weary of chasing down our 4-ways because they had cleaned out the trunk at home before coming to the strip and didn't have a lug wrench.....or a spare. Open-ended nuts were the answer.
Scroll down here to Section 20, Page 28 to see the illustration.....it's very near the end of the Rulebook in General Regulations, Section 5, Tires and Wheels.....
http://www.gatewaymsp.com/wp-content...A_RuleBook.pdf

I used to ask the fellows who had no spare or wrench what they would do if they had a flat. Triple A was the answer most given.

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Nice tip! Also, the wheel stud would need to be long enough to engage inside the nut.

I know all about that, drag raced for 30 yrs. My second drag car had 5/8's studs on the rear and 1/2's on the front. I even put 1/2 in on the rear of my chevelle I got now, 2 in long. I'd rather have longer studs and open lug nuts front and rear not only for safety, but for ease of installation.