well, as the title says, 2 of my stud conversion bolts snapped. i was pulling away from a stop sign near my house and i felt my car skip a little like a ran over a rock. turns out it was one of my pretty red lug nuts hitting the curb after snapping out of my wheel. i pulled over, called AAA and got towed to my neighborhood shop.

long story short, 2 studs snapped FLUSH with the hub surface on the same wheel. now i know that any average joe with a screw extractor could pull those bad boys out, but the guy installing my wheels and all that good stuff thought it would be a GREAT idea to dab a little bit of jb weld on the end. i'm not too sure how stuck the front bolts are, but i was able to break one of the others free myself just as a test.

my questions are A) how difficult is it for a ballsy shop to extract broken, flush screws locked in with jb weld?

and B) how hard is it for me to extract the rest of the unbroken screws locked in with a dab of jb weld?

worst case scenario is that the front hub has to be replaced. i know that jb weld breaks down at 600 degree per the back of the packaging, but can i remove the rest with some good old muscle and a little bit of direct heat?

 

If extractor wont do the trick then drill out most of the stud and re-tap the threads. Worst case change out the hub/bearing.

 

OBTW where these studs eBay quality? I'm in the market for studs and don't want to have same issue.

 

thanks for the quick response, i'm gonna see what the shop says tuesday about getting the broken bolts out and then work on the rest on my own!

and yeah, they're ebay. i was trying to see how long i could go before having to admit to that. in hindsight, i wish i would have bought the kit from way.

 

It also helps to hit the stud with a flame from a propane torch before you try to twist it out with an extractor. Obviously, you hav e to be careful where you put the flame, but the heat from the torch will help with the JBWeld issue.

 

I have a set of the eBay type studs from my old VW and would advise against them. Pick up a set of the TSW ones from Way. The materials are much stronger and not prone to breaking like the eBay ones.

 

+1 for tsw or Turner motorsports studs

 

There are only 4 small bolts which hold a critical component on the car. That being the case, going with something cheap of unknown quality doesn't make any sense, especially when it directly affects the safety of the vehicle. ARP studs are costly, but I've never heard anyone complain about their quality. They are pretty much the top when it comes to manufacturing quality fasteners used in the automotive industry for critical components.

 

And then inform your installer that blue loctite will do a fine job of adding insurance that the studs will not back out. JB weld is for *repairs*.

 

Two things:

From my experience, your not going to get the stud out of the hub with it flush to the hub. I had an OEM lug bolt shear and then I proceeded to break an extractor off in too - this without JB or loctite. I took to Way to have the hub replaced and the axle was seized in the hub as well (since they don't grease them up). Way actually bent up a puller trying to take the hub off too. I just left it for the time being since I ran OEM hub centeric wheels.... which brings me to my next question:

What wheels are you running that would cause the load to transfer directly to the bolts rather than the hub centeric ring? Were the nuts on the two studs just loose?

If you go the hub replacement route, be prepared for a replacement axle and trans fluid replacement if its seized in the hub.