Wheels / Tires: Confirm procedure for removing and replacing lug nuts

[bsrosell]

Hi,
I have a '57 Golden Hawk; was fortunate enough to find NOS front brake drums, but need to use my old hubs. So, will need to use new studs, which I've purchased as well.
QUESTION:
REMOVAL: I have a bearing press; my plan was to "simply" support under each old stud, press them out (any heating or other tricks required to prevent damaging the old hub?). Were they swedged in, or just press fit (thus 'pressing back out" sufficient and harmless?). I'd rather ask than damage them, though almost sure you'd just 'press them out'...

INSTALLING NEW LUGS: I was going to reverse the process, support the new stud area of the hub, press the new studs in.... BUT, am assuming I should THEN take two drums/hubs to a machine shop (our local auto repair shop says they have a tool forsomehow locking in wheel studs...) and have them 'dimple' or swedge or whatever the technique is to lock them in place tight enough to resist modern impact wrenches and such......

When I got the car, the previous owner (I'll refrain from foul language) had literally used silicone to hold the studs in place from inside the drum; good for one-time tightening of lug nuts; and of course spun immediately when I tried to remove the wheels. Being 'mag' wheels they'd put on, what a treat it was to try and drill out those studs through the deep cavity of alloy wheels (lugs wanted to spin with drill, too!). I'm sure the "left-hand thread' demon was showing up here, was only that side of the car..... Some grease-monkey kid tried to remove the originals with an impact wrench and ruined them I'm sure, as everything else was good.

Anyway, I certainly don't want my wheel studs turning on me or anyone else someday, and impact wrenches give quite a jolt, so just pressing them in alone doesn't seem sufficient.
Can someone confirm if I'm correct, or missing a key point in the process here? (or overly cautious? Press-in sufficient to withstand future torque?) Thanks!!
Barry

[karterfred88]

Pressing in should be sufficient if the hub has not been damaged at the lug stud holes. The PO use of silicone to keep them from spinning indicates the holes may be oversized already. There are lots of choices for replacement lug studs, you may need to go to a larger diameter shoulder serrated one, or even resize the hub holes for a good fit. As to swaging the new drums, it may be necessary or not. The originals were but if you are lucky and get an oversized lug stud the correctly positions and centers the drum they are not needed. If you do have them swaged, be absolutely sure the drum is concentric to the center of the hubs before doing it or they may cause an out of round feel and egg shaped wear on the drum. In process of doing it on the rear hubs on my Avanti, but have found that the lug stud circle is not perfect from the factory, a couple of thousandths off at each one, the drum is not drilled exactly either. If you look closely at an untouched drum and hub, you'll see the factory must have had some tool to align the center and the friction surface before swaging as I found thin spacers randomly shoved between the drilled drum holes and the stud shoulders to align them. Also they probably turned the drums once on the hubs to make up for any slight error.
This list may be helpful for the lug studs: http://www.dormanproducts.com/gsearc...tart=50&num=25
I'm in the process of trying to center the drum without any tool, then drill locating holes and retaining screws to hold them in place. The wheel lugs do all the clamping, all the swage does is keep the drum aligned to the hub center, and make it harder to do brake repairs. If you are replacing the studs, it's a good time to get rid of the left hand thread lugs and replace with normal ones, so some tire jockey doesn't do the same thing.

[bezhawk]

No!!!! do NOT simply press out the old studs. The swadge has to be cut first. Otherwise the drum will deform around the stud hole.

[bsrosell]

thanks for the advice. I'll have to clamp my spindle in the vice and check the drum run-out with a dial indicator after pressing the hubs and lugs in, but before bringing to the shop for swaging.

Re: removal, how does one 'cut of the swadge' ? Seems it is like a rivet, expanded internally to fill the hole in the hub tightly, so wouldn't you have to drill it then to relieve the pressure and make for easier push-out? I'm in the house and the drums are not here in front of me, but just picturing it, not sure of any thing else you'd do (besides good back up, socket or something ) around it prior to pressing. Can you explain more what you mean by cutting off the swadge and how you did that? (Fortunately the "siliconed" set of lugs was a rear drum, which I am able to replace with NOS drums BUT complete with the hub and studs, so I think my front hubs are good, they didn't spin or anything when I removed the wheels).
YES, definitely going RH threads all the way around!!!

[bezhawk]

https://www.goodson.com/Brake-Drum-Swedge-Cutting-Tool/

Something like this must be used.

[karterfred88]

Or a little more cost effective, a 5/8" bimetal hole saw, just use it carefully not to touch the drum face, a few taps with a piece of wood and a hammer on the end of the stud after will release the drum without damage.

[Mrs K Corbin]

someone needs to make a lesson plan on this....

[55 56 PREZ 4D]

someone needs to make a lesson plan on this....

Google is your friend.
Until someone does do a lesson plan,
Google:
fordgarage.com/pages/swaging.htm
Full of pictures and text.
One thing that is very plain, the stud hole in the drum is tapered. The designated swage cutter is tapered so it does not enlarge the brake drum hole.
A 5/8 hole saw will enlarge the hole in the drum if it drills through the existing swage. If you are going to use the hole cutter AND try to save the drum for reuse, ONLY drill partially through the swage and NOT into the drum.

[karterfred88]

Google is your friend.
Until someone does do a lesson plan,
Google:
fordgarage.com/pages/swaging.htm
Full of pictures and text.
One thing that is very plain, the stud hole in the drum is tapered. The designated swage cutter is tapered so it does not enlarge the brake drum hole.
A 5/8 hole saw will enlarge the hole in the drum if it drills through the existing swage. If you are going to use the hole cutter AND try to save the drum for reuse, ONLY drill partially through the swage and NOT into the drum.

The hole saw will not touch the ID of the drum lug hole. I have the studs I removed, and they still have a very thin (1/64 to 1/128 inch) ring of uncut stud shoulder, which is so weak as to allow the stud to almost fall through the drum hole. The hole saw easily passes through the factory drill holes without touching, so long as you are careful not to angle the saw and allow the stud to center it, it works fine . This is a Studebaker not a Ford, it appears precision was not as important to them. The drum has no taper at the drilled lug holes and the new studs are a loose fit at the drum holes allowing movement of the drum, they are a tight .007 interference fit to the hub drilled holes, with no other method to keep them from spinning. Thus advising that the need to properly center on the hub center before just swaging in place.

[TWChamp]

Model A guys use bolts to hold the drum and hub together, then one at a time they remove the bolt and install and swage the stud.

[jpepper]

The swage cutter is like a hollow end mill. The hole in the center pilots on the stud. Cut the swage to the drum face and separate the drum from the hub. Press out the old studs. Press in the new ones. Drop the new drum on the new studs then the new studs get swaged or staked trapping the drum. This requires a special tool as well. A slight clean up cut is then taken in the drum to true it. You may have to find an old time brake shop or auto machine shop that still has these old tools.

[Lynn]

I agree wholeheartedly on the swedge cutter. I did this many times back in the 70's and 80's. However, make sure they haven't already been cut. I disagree that you need to swedge the new ones in. Look at the rears on GM cars of that era. No swedge. Some fronts are swedged in, others are not. The clamping force of the lug nuts is sufficient IMHO. I understand there may be an honest disagreement here, but I will say that of all the hundreds (maybe thousands) that I cut, installed and did NOT swedge, there was not one reported problem. Overkill in my opinion, and will just make it harder the next time they need to come out.

[jclary]

Well...I've been following this thread for a while now. I was waiting for someone else to suggest the obvious...but, so far, no one has. I'm happy that you found "NEW" NOS Drums. But, with all the hassle of attempting to "De-swedge" your old hubs, chancing deforming, warping, or encountering balance issues, how 'bout finding complete usable assemblies? At least, you will be able to enjoy your car, relax and take your time building new ones from the NOS drums without such urgency.

Could be that you are already doing this, but I couldn't tell by the postings so far. I know that Studebaker brake drums are not as plentiful as dandelions, but surely there are some "out there" without all the difficulty of hub work described above. Especially for your "steering" wheels. I've experienced cracked drum flanges before, and the thought of what could have happened if it had failed "at speed" is horrifying. I don't know if some previous owner had tried to press out the lugs, or the hub/drum had been damaged by hitting a pot-hole or curb, but the cracks were spider-webbed from the stud holes. They were nearly impossible to see unless you placed a large magnet on the hub and sprinkled metal shavings on the flange around the lug bolts.(Like magnifluxing)

Regardless, my suggestion is to replace the entire assemblies, and then build your new assemblies. Document the process, and post it here. Sooner or later, we may all be facing this as a necessity.

Of course, Jim Turner (Turner Brakes) probably sees this as...opportunity!

[bsrosell]

Update: per the excellent information here (as always!), I was fortunate to find a set of almost NOS hubs, eliminating the need to take off any (and, keeping an almost NOS drum intact for someone else someday; surface-rusty but hardly any brake wear...). Regardless, New drums, hubs, and studs; now all I need to do is get them swaged in and a little 'truing' prudent I'm sure; hadn't thought of that before but makes good sense, never going to be dead-center after putting together. Thanks for all the pointers guys!

[hwkmn]

From someone attempting to find replacements, what "was" available in 2015 is no longer available in 2022. Prudent info for removal of the swaged lugs securing the drum to the hub but I opted for paying $6.99 X 3 from a local Rural King selling a 5/8 Bi-Metal Hole saw (Milwaukee) that fits my existing holder for Milwaukee hole saws and done in my drill press to get down to the surface of the drum and like pointed out by one other member, some...not all...but some had a thin area left that the 5/8 bit did not remove.

As stated, the OEM drum has what appears to be a 0.645" hole x 5 for the lugs. It was swaged in place but also stated by others is that it was old technology.

The issue I now face, though is that whether you use a 20 ton press to extract all 5 lugs from the hub - or - use a heavy hammer to beat out the lugs adequately, you now have 5 holes to fit a segmented new lug in its place. I looked at Dorman 610-120 and also 610-155 for a replacement. One has a shoulder of 0.65....the other is 0.63. From what I can tell in my application, the holes in the hub average 0.625.

One of the Dorman lugs was a "slip fit" meaning why someone found silicone was used to simply hold the lugs in place while placing the drum over the hub and yes, once the lug nuts are cranked down it may or MAY not rotate. Swaging or having a knurled fit will prevent that on "or" off again. But which to use?

Again, I and others don't have a 20 ton press on the average to try things. Running daily to a machine shop and paying $75/hour for labor charges isn't my ideal either.

But thanks for posting....trying to find an actual member who did their own work and can relate what substitutes were done so I can get my car back on the ground.