Don't need a drag car to see that, the tighter-than-hell LS in my truck produces that jerky tire skuffing sillyness, and I have no problems with lug nuts loosesning up.

 

I guess that knocks that theory out the window

 

i dont know what all the fuss is about a spool being a "bad" idea,ive run one all year round in a 80 f100 and i got a full spool in the 71 do alot of street driving with it in the summer,rain or shine no problem. shure when ya go around a corner the inside wheel drags some. big deal atleast when ya gas on it your limited slip will slip and a spool will always be there turnin both tires no matter what. the cost savings id say is worth it to 300-500 for a locker or limited slip or 185 bucks for a strange full spool and it dont have all the parts to break ware out

 

so why not just save ALL your money and weld your spiders, if it's no big deal that is.

 

Another reason spools are bad is because the factory axle shafts on most cars are not strong enough to hand jerking. There is a greater chance of breaking an axle shaft. I know a guy that welded his rear end for road use and he went threw about 3 axles in one year. That was a chevy 12 bolt. Some things you just have to do smartly and not half *** it.

 

i did weld the spiders before the spool and one good nitrous infested burnout took care of the spiders. im pretty shure the welding(heat) then cooling down had somthing to do with the spiders busting

 

crash and burn before ya learn

 

The engineering is pure and sound behind the leftie-threaded studs, for all vehicles driven hard in forward gears, esp. w/ less-than-open diff's.

This raises lots of questions, criticisms and insights from the any good gearhead: driving in reverse, open diff's, limited slip, lockers, or running directional tires "backwards" on one axle when four-wheeling, physics front-to-rear vs. physics side-to-side....

All the "science", as usual, boils down to "business": today's costs associated with having only one type of fastener outweigh the safety factors for production vehicles. Simply put, what's not safe enough and doesn't work on the dragstrip/in the woods/for custom purposes is cheaper and works "well enough" for production, in the minds of those who sign the paychecks.

IMHO, as a purist, sad but true.

 

Why are ya'll laughing?I haven't worked on a semi that had right hand studs on the left side of the drive axle...sure you're comparing a tangerine to a grapefruit in terms of size and power...but still...the same principles......

JR

 

I'm finding it quite amusing what people will use as a DD

 

The ONLY vehicles I've seen with LH threads on a hub were pre '65 ****** Jeeps, on the right front wheel. We had a '46 ****** MJ-3A when I was a kid, and ****** even took the effort to stamp an L in the ends of the studs on the right front wheel. Right rear had RH threads though. I never really understood that theory, because it ain't like a flat-head 4-banger geared down like a tractor is gonna do any significant wheel chirping or axel twisting to break the lug-nuts loose. It would climb a tree, albeit not very fast. My step-father's dad had a '64 ******. It TOO had the LH threads on the right front wheel. We later got a new '74 AMC, and it had RH threads all the way 'round. Now that one would throw some serious rooster tails in the mud with a 258 six lunger. Oh yeah, know what was stamped on the axels under a 72 AMC CJ-5? FOMOCO. Had EXACTLY the same drums/brake parts (front and rear) as a 1973 F-100. I know this from replacing the pads every year after hunting season, and drums every other year. Mud + drum brakes = worn out brakes, FREQUENTLY. We never worried about brakes on the '46, because it would never go fast enough to even bend the front bumper when we used the nearest pine tree to stop it. Redline in 3rd gear was about 31 mph. The 258 was nothing but a bored out 251, which ALSO had FOMOCO embossed in the block. Maybe AMC knew something?

I think Studebaker, Packard, and a few older GM models bought into the LH thread theory on the right front as well, but can't name all the models. I think that idea went the way of the dodo with the tapered seat lug nuts. I've never seen a Stud up close, nor any old GM models, so can't say for sure. I just never understood why it was thought to be needed on the right front, but not on the right rear.

 

Flareside Thunder,

It comes down to power distribution. Though torque is king, don't forget that power (horsepower) is the rate of generation of torque, or, how fast that power gets to the wheels. In a semi, though you have lots of torque, you have 300-500 horsepower engines, on average, delivering that torque to 2 axles, 10 lugs each, over 8 tires, with much bigger lugs and lug nuts torqued down to much higher specs. In a dragster, you have anywhere from 300-1000+ horsepower applied to 2 tires on 1 axle with 1/2" studs and nuts zapped down to, oh, maybe, 100-ish ft-lbs...lot less than the 500 ft-lbs I zap the dogs down to on tri-axles (ex-construction mechanic). Simply put, the safety concerns are slim-to-none that a semi's gonna rip/vibrate/rotate/whatever the opposide-side lugs off compared to a dragster, though theoretically, the driver's side should be lefties.

And yes, in case you're thinking of it, if you took that same high-powered dragster, w/ rightie-threaded studs on the passenger side and leftie-threads on the driver's side, (and for this case and all previous cases, neglecting the inertia of the lug nuts themselves and assuming standard sizes, not lug nuts the size of fire hydrants), and SLAMMED it in reverse, repeatedly, you could loosen the lug nuts and send the wheels flying also.

I had a great 9th grade science teacher.

JP

 

Having been up close and personal with plenty of NASCAR cars and countless drag cars, I can assure you I've personally seen the lug nuts on a NASCAR car spin, on all four wheels, just like our regular lug nuts. Righty tighty...