Gentlemen, are your nuts right?

I have noticed several pictures here recently of rear axles on deuces that have been singled out with the inner nuts holding on the tires. So here is my concern, is that OK to do. Remember seeing front cover on Army motors or Supply line that had a WW2 deuce with these on the front. I wondered then if that was factory.

I have seen a rim that one of these inner nuts pulled through. I have always rounded up 6 big nuts off of a trailer or just bought 6 for these purposes. I am being paranoid or has anyone else seen these things fail. I not trying to tell any body what to do, but I would feel bad if something did go wrong and I had not expressed my concern.

Joe Trapp
Assassin of Joy

I have seen civilian wheels fail using the cap nuts. It is better to use lug nuts but with the thickness of the military wheel the cap nuts, well they might be ok. If you had an adapter ring / spacer plate it would be ok.

Mine had just the inner nuts on the rear when I got it. I replaced them with front nuts from E-Bay, less than $25 for 24 of them. I would be more afraid of the nuts failing, plus they look goofy.

I would not feel safe with inner nuts alone with the relatively small flange. I use mine as steps to get up on the bed, but alternate with regular nuts for increased margin of safety.

The bearing area is the same for both types... Remember the inner nuts are the only ones screwed onto the studs in dual sets... the outers are just on the inners.. so the inners are strong enough to hold two wheels... ACE...

The inner nuts at least appear to have less contact area on the tapered part. The larger "regular" lug nuts support a larger area as can be seen in the image posted above.

acetomatoco said:

The bearing area is the same for both types... Remember the inner nuts are the only ones screwed onto the studs in dual sets... the outers are just on the inners.. so the inners are strong enough to hold two wheels... ACE...

Click to expand...

Yes the cap nuts hold the inner wheel on when dueled up. The outer wheel is then put on and is held in place with regular nuts which cover a bigger area. The outer wheel acts like a reinforcement ring for the inner wheel. Look at a lot of civilian trucks. They use a ring that is bolted to the outside duel to help reinforce the wheel bolt area.

The inners are tapered on both sides of the lug. One side so it goes into the taper in the inner wheel, and the back side fits into the taper on the outer for alignment and strength. I wouldn't use the lugs for the inners alone if the truck were being loaded. Empty, you should be OK, but it looks funky. As you can see from Bjorns' picture, the correct lug is available.

Ther should be no dueling regarding the duals. ACE

Touche" Tomato.