Left vs right hand thread wheel studs.

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This thread is killing me! View attachment 1715369344

Yes its normal, and your thinking isn't screwed up.

Sometimes, but not always, there are markings on the nuts or the studs. Nuts will have a different color or line on them. Studs may have an L stamped on the head. One set of Crager closed nuts I have uses a different size hex for the lefties. They are easy to work with. All you have to do is run your clock backwards. View attachment 1715369345

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And some chrome lugnuts have a groove machined into the hex.

10-chrome-7-16-20-LEFT-Hand-thread-Mag-Wheel (1).jpg
 
Easiest way to remember: When you make a left turn you put on which blinker?


Not always.
Just the other day I saw a car with LEFT blinker on , turn RIGHT.
About caused an accident. Luckily I was second car behind the "turning" vehicle and had room to avoid it.
Not saying I'm the best driver out there, but 40+ years of oval track racing has taught me to be quite observant of my surroundings while driving.
 
LH studs on left of car (drivers side) Rh studs on right side of car (passenger side). General motors had the lefties too until '64 if I recall correctly. So did some of the others like Studebakers until '63 (I think) and various other brands I don't remember because I don't work on those any more. Mopar was the last hold out.
Just this spring a friend took his 62 Bonneville convertible to get new tires and the shop broke off all five left front wheel studs before they came out to the waiting area to tell him his lugs were so rusted they were breaking off. He told them to look at the work ticket which he had the counter person write in big letters, "Caution, left hand wheel lugs on this car." Fortunately they didn't break the rear ones too. He made them source some left hand studs to replace them with. He had to leave his car for a couple of days until they could FedEx some studs from Arizona.
 
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Most trucks and buses had left hand thread on the drivers side back when they used Budd nuts. I have no idea why.
 
Ok. Here is the evolution of the left hand wheel nut.
Back around 50 thousand BC when OGG invented the wheel, he only made one and didn't see a need to invent it.( the nut ) On the 3rd day of pushing his new stone wheel around with a big stick, it took off rolling down a big *** hill. And he thought to himself F that ,that thing is heavy, dumb *** invention anyway. It can stay down in the creek.
So centuries go by and some Roman guy finds this round stone wheel thing in the creek and thought to himself, wow this is interesting. So this Roman guy sits on a rock, with his chin resting on his fist starts thinking of all the possibilities of what he could do with it. (They made a statue of this guy by the way.) To fricken heavy to take back to town. I think I can make this out of wood and make two and put them on a chariot for Julius. So that's what he did. Well unfortunately he didn't know and used right hand nuts on both sides. Long story short, wheel fell off , Julius broke an arm and ordered to lop off the thinkers head.
The wheel idea lay dormant for some years till Darwin got wind of the wheel and gave it some thought and came up with the" theory of revolution " which he invented the left hand wheel nut. And finally the wheel thing took off. It was all rolling along smoothly till the 1970s rolled around and the US government started making all the car makers to hire Affrimative Action. Then it all got screwed up again with the left on right crap. So someone decided to make em all right and just make sure to tighten em.
You can quote me on this it is the gospel.
 
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Had a friend of mine with drum brakes on his car , got a brake job done. When he got the car back , ( unknown to him ) they swapped the drums , side to side. When he tried to change a tire , he broke 2 studs before he noticed the large " L " on the end of the stud. Oh my was he upset.

Frank
 
I remember my first episode like it happened yesterday. The high school QB was driving his fathers 69 Polara and had a flat on the left front. The whole team tried to loosen and one of them managed to shear a stud off. I walked up and noticed the L on the center of the stud. Told them to try and go the opposite way and Shazam! Was never a Jock but got some new friends that day!
 
It's incredibly sound and logical engineering.

...but most "people" are stoopid.

I think it's part of the character of our cars.

I used to have magnets in high visibility colors that said "CAUTION - LEFT HAND THREAD".

Now I only trust one other shop to do any wheel work and I've known them for 30 years.

(and I also have converted to RH since my LH stud source dried up)

A good 4x4 shop usually has LH stuff in stock, but ours closed up about 15 years ago.
 
The only reason for left handed is if they're screw in. I have had normal right handed back out of driver side rear. 2 hit the break plate and snapped. They were long 4.5" for drag racing. So the remaining length was still long enough to hold lug nut on.
 
I learned that left was port; both have four letters; like wine; which is red. But I just bought two boats to part out and they both had their colored lenses switched so the red one was on the starboard side.
 
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