Wheel End Components Explained

By: John

Video Transcript

Hi, my name is John Otto, the category manager here at Parts for Trucks, specializing in Wheel end systems. Today, we’re going to speak about and talk about and discuss eight-hole and ten-hole hub piloted wheel systems, which are most common in the industry today.

We need to start by determining whether you were working with a rim or a wheel. They are not the same however very similar. This is a rim. It does support the tire. However, it has an adapter ring and mounts to a spoke wheel. There are no bolt holes in it. This is a wheel. It has the portion to support the tire and it has a disc welded in it with bolt holes in it. So your car has a wheel that doesn’t have a rim, it has bolt holes to attach it.

Now, over the years there have been two wheel systems. The first one was known as the ball seat mount and the and the bolt holes were chamfered. They had a 28 degree chamfer in them, and they used the chamfered wheel nut on the front and on the drives and on trailers, on dual wheels.

They used an inner nut called a thimble nut, and many people were very familiar with them. And an outer nut, and many people did not like the system. So, what evolved out of Europe was known as the hub piloted system. It uses a two-piece flange, nut, they swivel, very nicely when they’re in good shape and the bolt holes are punched directly straight and the wheels pilot on the hub. So, what is hub pilot? Well, the wheel on the drum is both piloted on pads that are on the hub

And just a reminder here today we are not talking anything about the bearing adjustment. We are strictly talking about the mounting the wheel just so a ten-hole or an eight-hole pilot system is metric. It’s not English thread, it’s metric. It’s 22mm 1.5 pitch. So these studs are right hand thread. versus a ball seat where there’s right and left, there’s lefts on the left side of the vehicle, right on the right side. These are strictly right-hand thread thery are m22 thread, 1.5 pitch.

Once again, the wheel is punched straight through. You can now see the pilot pads, thus, hub-piloted a ball seat mount is piloted on the studs, a hub pilot is piloted on these pilot pads that are part of the wheel hub. This is the brake drum and the drum also pilots on the pads down here, so an important thing to look for when you pilot. The drum on, is in here on the pilot pads and we’ll get into that in further depth. But these are pads, so the wheel and the drum pilot on the pads.

With regards to the tools that are necessary, it’s a must that you have these. You can use different variations, but certainly you need an impact gun. It’s good to have a small impact on the majority of the hex size on these wheel nuts, on these metric wheel are 33mm, you’re going to want some form of wire brush wire wheel, certainly not a grinding disc. You’re also going to need oil. It’s the only system, wheel system that does require some lubrication. And of course, you need a properly calibrated and maintained torque wrench in order to torque the wheel properly to gain the proper clamping force.

Thank you for joining us for this session where we talk, discuss about the components and identification of the pilot wheel system and the basics of the system that you see in front of us here. Should you have any questions, please contact one of our branches or visit us at www.partsfortrucks.com.