Lug-nuts on an Acura.

A lug nut is a fastener, specifically a nut, used to secure a wheel on a vehicle. Typically, lug nuts are found on automobiles, trucks (lorries), and other large vehicles utilizing rubber tires.

Design[link]

A lug nut is a nut with one rounded or conical (tapered) end, used on steel and most aluminum wheels. A set of lug nuts are typically used to secure a wheel to threaded wheel studs and thereby to a vehicle's axles.

Some designs use lug bolts instead of nuts, which screw into a tapped (threaded) hole in the wheel's hub or brake drum or disc. This configuration is commonly known as a bolted joint.

The lug's taper is normally 60 degrees (although 45 is common for wheels designed for racing applications), and is designed to center the wheel accurately on the axle, and to reduce the tendency for the nut to loosen, due to fretting induced precession, as the car is driven. Honda uses a spherical rather than a tapered seat, but the nut performs the same function. Older style alloy wheels have a 1/2 to 1 inch shank slipping into the wheel to center it and a washer that applies pressure to clamp the wheel to the axle.

Removal and installation[link]

Disc brake with 5 wheel studs sticking out

Lug nuts may be removed using a lug, socket or impact wrench. If the wheel is to be removed then an automotive jack to raise the vehicle and some wheel chocks would be used as well. Wheels that have hubcaps or hub covers need these removed beforehand, typically with a screwdriver,^[1] flatbar, or prybar. Lug nuts can be difficult to remove, as they may become frozen to the wheel stud. In such cases a breaker bar or repeated blows from an impact wrench can be used to free them. Alternating between tightening and loosening can free especially stubborn lug nuts.

Lug nuts must be installed in an alternating pattern, commonly referred to as a star pattern.^[2] This ensures a uniform distribution of load across the wheel mounting surface. When installing lug nuts, it is recommended to tighten them with a calibrated torque wrench. While a lug, socket or impact wrench may be used to tighten lug nuts the final tightening should be performed by a torque wrench, ensuring an accurate and adequate load is applied. Torque specifications vary by vehicle and wheel type. Both vehicle and wheel manufacturers provide recommended torque values which should be consulted when an installation is done. Failure to abide by the recommended torque value can result in damage to the wheel and brake rotor/drum. Additionally, under tightened lug nuts may come loose with time.

Detecting loose nuts[link]

In order to allow early detection of loose lug nuts, some large vehicles are fitted with loose wheel nut indicators. The indicator spins with the nut, so that it can be detected with a visual inspection.

History[link]

Some cars made prior to about 1960 used left-hand and right-hand screw thread for different sides of the vehicle to prevent loosening. It was later realized that the taper seat performed the same function. Modern vehicles use right-hand threads on all wheels.

See also[link]

• Center cap
• Wheel sizing

References[link]

Look up lug in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Lug or LUG may refer to:

Places[link]

• Lug (Tomislavgrad), a Croatian village in Herzegovina
• Lug, Bilje, a settlement in Croatian Baranja
• Lug, Germany, a municipality in Germany
• Ług, Łódź Voivodeship, a village in Poland
• Lug (Beočin), a village in Serbia

Transportation[link]

• Lug (bicycle part), steel tubing and sockets of a bicycle
• Lugano Airport (IATA Airport Code)
• Lug sail is a four sided sail bent to a yard which is slung at about a third of its length from forward. It gives its name to the sailing craft lugger.
• Lugging, when an internal combustion engine is run at overly low RPMs for the load being applied to it, potentially damaging the engine in the process.

Handles or connectors[link]

• Lug (knob), handles are a kind of flattened knob attached to the side of pottery
• Lug (electrical connector), a bolt on an enclosure tied to an electric potential within the enclosure, supporting the connection of a cable
• Lug, the protrusion from the case of a wristwatch to which the strap or bracelet attaches, usually by means of spring pins that bridge pairs of lugs at the upper and lower sides of a watch's case.
• Lug, part of a drum used in conjunction with tension rods and counter hoops to tension the drum head in relation to the shell.

Acronyms[link]

• Last Unicorn Games, games publisher later absorbed by Wizards of the Coast
• Level Up! Games Or Level Up! Games company
• Lesbian until graduation, slang term
• Linux User Group, private organization providing support for Linux users
• Law of Universal Gravitation, Isaac Newton's equations for gravity
• Læger Uden Grænser, Danish brand of Doctors without borders / Médecins Sans Frontières

Other uses[link]

• Lug (unit) is a unit of measure for linear distance equal to a Rod or ⅟320 of a statute mile
• Lug (packaging), a type of container used for agricultural produce
• Lugh, an ancient god in Irish mythology
• Lug (slang) is a Scottish slang word for ear.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up nut or nuts in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Nut, NUT, Nuts or NUTS may refer to:

Food and plants[link]

• Nut (fruit)
• Nut grass, (Cyperus rotundus) sometimes known as "the World's worst weed"

Mechanical devices[link]

• Nut (hardware), a fastener used with a bolt
• Nut (climbing), a piece of metal wedged into a rock
• Nut (string instrument), of a string instrument is a small piece of hard material which supports the strings at the end closest to the headstock or scroll
• The moving element of a ball screw

Media and entertainment[link]

• Nuts (play), a 1979 play by Tom Topor
• Nuts (film), a 1987 American drama film directed by Martin Ritt; the screenplay by Tom Topor, Darryl Ponicsan, and Alvin Sargent is based on Topor's 1979 play of the same title
• Nuts (magazine), a weekly UK men's magazine
• Nuts TV, a British television channel related to Nuts magazine
• NUT Container, a multimedia container format
• Nuts, a 1970s comic strip in National Lampoon by Gahan Wilson
• Nuts, a 1990s comic strip in alternative newspapers by M. Wartella
• Nut (movie character) from the 1983 Hong Kong crime comedy, "Oh, My Cops!", and the 1990 Hong Kong crime thriller, Against All
• Nut (Marvel Comics), a fictional character appearing in the Marvel Comics universe, based loosely on Nut, the Egyptian goddess of the sky
• Modesto Nuts, a minor league baseball team in Modesto, California, USA
• NBCUniversal Television Studios
• NUTS (student television), the student television station of the University of Nottingham

In slang[link]

• Slang for a person suffering from insanity
• Slang term for testicle
  • Truck nuts, accessories for pickup trucks and other vehicles
• Slang term for ejaculate
• To headbutt, strike with the head
• Nut hand, a poker term

Science and technology[link]

• NUTS (talker), an Internet communications server
• Network UPS Tools

Other uses[link]

• Nut (goddess), the Egyptian goddess of the sky
• The Nut (disambiguation)
• The Nut, a landmark near Stanley, Tasmania
• NUT Motorcycles, a British motorcycle manufacturer founded in Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1912 by Hugh Mason and Jock Hall
• National Union of Teachers, a British trade union for school teachers
• No U-turn syndrome, a term describing Singaporean culture
• Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics is a standard for referencing the administrative divisions of countries
• Nuclear Utilization Target Selection, a theory regarding nuclear weaponry
• "Nuts!", a quote attributed to General Anthony McAuliffe at the Battle of Bastogne
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, the abbreviation has since changed to NUST
• Niue time, the UTC−11:00 time zone
• En dash or nut, traditionally half the width of an em dash

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.