I have a 1995 F350 DRW pickup and I just went through all of my lug studs shearing off on the right rear tire. Fortunatly I had slowed down when I noticed something wrong and managed to get down to about 5 MPH before it all let go. I only track down two of the eight lug nuts so I must have been running a little while on only a few lugs.

The inner wheel has steel wheels and the outer is aluminum. The steel wheel had a few gouges but the aluminum is trashed where the studs ate up the holes in the wheel. I was told by the original owner of the truck that the wheels where on the truck when he bought it from the dealer. I have no idea if they are factory or dealer installed.

After a tow company tried to load my truck, they ended up calling a mechanic and he replaced the studs right on the highway to get me off the highway. Gee, go figure a 8000lb rated flatbed isn't going to pull up 11,500 lbs of camper and pickup.

The mechanic advised against putting the aluminum wheel on and we mounted up my steel spare. The steel wheel uses two peice lug nuts instead of cone nuts that the aluminum wheels have.
That's what the mechanic showed up with and used for replacements. He advised me to keep the two peice nuts for using with the spare in the future since the steel wheel is hub centric not lug centric. Now that I'm home, I looked up the wheel and hub section in the shop manaul and they have a great big warning against using the cone nuts and to only use the two peice nuts on DRW trucks. It warns that using the cone nuts can cause the wheels to come loose and fall off in operation.

Now I'm wondering what I should be doing. Is it OK to use the two peice nuts on the aluminum wheels? They are a close fit to the hub, but I have no idea if they are truely hub centric like the steel wheels. Should I be using a different aluminum wheel on the truck?

 

Joe, when you say "two piece lugnuts" do you mean the lugnuts that look like they have a washer connected to them. If so, that is the type of lugnuts I have on my dually, it has factory aluminum wheels. It is possible that the older style tapered lugnuts were your culprit. It the wheels themselves are not tapered at the lugstud holes the tapered nuts would eventually back off. I would replace all the lugnuts with the flat style if your wheel don't have any taper in the holes. Oh yeah, and torque them down to 140 ft/lbs. Adam

 

Thanks Adam. The aluminum wheels have (well, for one HAD) tapered holes. The steel ones do not. What I'm weary of is if my aluminum wheels are the wrong ones for the truck.

I have a honkin big camper and I tow a boat too - Hence why I have a DRW. This time it was just the camper, but I'm often towing a boat. I certainly am up near the top end on weight and I don't want to go through this again.

 

OK, with further research, I definitely have the wrong wheels on my truck. They are wheels that belong on a '87 or older F350. They are not hub centric - there is about .070 clearance on the center hole. The lug holes are 60 degree taper, not flat face. Because of the larger center piece, the proper lug nuts won't even fit.

I've found wheels from a junked F350 for $150 a pop - grumble, grumble.

After talking to the original owner, he indicated the dealer put these wheels on. I wonder how they will treat my questioning their wheel selection on a truck the sold 10 years ago.

 

I hate that you had to spend so much to get the correct wheels, but I am glad you found the problem. Dealership problem "under new management" since then, or any other excuse they can come up with, but might be fun to ask.