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Drive axle wheel studs with aluminum inner wheels
Has anyone switched out the inner steel drive wheels with aluminum rims same as the outers? Do you need longer wheel studs? I recall from the last time I had wheels off the aluminum rims are thicker at the hub area. Don’t recall if there was enough excess length on the studs to reach far enough into the outer wheel nut/studs to meet spec for engagement.
Before you ask the reason I would switch, it is to use the take offs from the steer and tag on the drive axle to get some more miles out of them without having to break down and remount 4 tires. I bought some extra aluminum wheels to mount my new steer tires on, so the old steers would stay on their original Al wheels when going to the drive.
On my coach the 4 drive tires are wearing out tread depth wise faster than the steers and tags. Did some tread depth measurements and don’t remember the numbers, but the gist of it is the drives are 3/4 of way through usable depth and the steers and tags are about 1/2 tread left. May be related to heavy use of the retarder and rare use of brakes – only for last 5 or 10 mph of stops. All the forces are being transferred through the drive tires on both going down the road against air and gravity and dissipating potential energy on decel and down grades.
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4 Replies
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You do have to change studs.
I can tell you for certain you are going to spend a lot of time polishing wheels that you could not access unless you pull the drive wheels when they need polishing.
There is a width issue as well. I think it might be with fender clearance but can’t be sure. CRS.
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Could this be an alignment issue? $500 and a trip to Prevost solves this.
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Yes he will have a fender clearance issue.
Later
bv
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Bought a 2000 CC XL-45 with aluminum inners and immediately removed them and went back to steel. Had a bad fender rub as Bernie pointed out.
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