deltsanddueces

so i recently sandblasted an painted these 15 in rallies and they came out lookin awesome. I took a wheel off my car the other day to look at my drum brakes and i noticed the lug holes were worn a little. i must have used the wrong style of taper lug nuts cause i checked every wheel after tht and they were all worn, one wheel being completely ruined. is there any way too fix this? can the holes be welded up and re drilled? i hate to admit that i ruined these wheels but i am an idiot most of the time

Olds64

If the wheels are damaged they're probably not worth saving. It would probably cost more to repair them than buying a new set of SSIIs. Do you have a pic?

joe_padavano

There used to be a vendor who sold conical steel washers for OEM styled steel wheels like this with damaged lug holes. The wheel is hub-centric, so the lugs just have to hold the wheel on; they don't locate it. I can't find that vendor now, unfortunately.

11971four4two

I had some SS wheels with bad lug holes. I purchased a set (20) of the oversize lug nuts like in the link. They did not pull through the holes. Effective but not "stock"

deltsanddueces

ill post a pic later when i get a chance. one wheel is definitely not worth saving, the other three don't look as bad as i thought initially though,

deltsanddueces

if the hole was just a little worn but the lug didnt pull through would this not be that big of a deal since the lug holes don't locate the wheel?
ill post some pictures later for reference

deltsanddueces

https://www.thepartsplaceinc.com/pro...et-of-20/60896

would these help solve the problem?

deltsanddueces

this is the wheel i don't feel comfortable running anymore

deltsanddueces

the other 3 wheels look like this which i put a dime up to the holes and they weren't as bad as i thought originally

i was using the big bulge lug on the right when this happened so i was gonna switch to the smaller taper, would this be the correct lug?

Yellowstatue

If all the holes are worn, then the wheel would rotate slightly under heavy braking or hard acceleration. The wheel must be held tightly to the hub.

69HO43

Those are snap cap SSIII wheels. Which means they're lugcentric. Meaning the lugs center AND hold the wheel at the same time. The bolt on cap styles are hubcentric meaning that the hub hold helps align the wheel. Either way, without proper clamping force, you'll allow the holes to wander. In this case it could be pretty bad if the holes wear out because you rely on the lugs to help center the wheel.

What it appears to me is that the lug holes may have been slightly worn enough for some or all the lugs to bottom out without filling out the holes and putting enough clamping force on the wheel to hold it on. Or they were bottoming first allowing the wheel to move which wore out the holes. Chicken or egg thing. With this kind of lugcentric wheels, you should bottom all the lugs first before tightening and start out with light seating. Remember there's no hub to help align it.

If the lug taper too deep, you could run the risk of having a cone where it contacts the wheel and allows the lug to bottom out first. If you try the shorter coned ones on the left, it may get you more cone contact with the proper torque.

JohnnyBs68S

My experience w/ SSI wheels w/ worn lug holes, is that the conical lug nut bottoms out on the hub before it fully clamps on the wheel, leaving the wheel loose even when the nuts are torqued. It would not matter if I used a larger lug nut, as long as the cone on the nut is cut at 45 deg (or whatever they are), the nut will bottom out before clamping the wheel. I use steel flat washers under the lug nut, which deforms under the cone and into the wheel hole as the lug nut is tightened. Not the best fix, but it works until I need new tires, at which point I'll be getting up-sized wheels.