97 Patriot 37’ - how to properly remove and reinstall drive tires

[Giovanni Bosch]

I have to remove both drive tires to do the forward upper shock mount fix. How is the best and safest way to do this? The nuts on the tire studs look like there’s not even a thread all the way through them.

[Eric Maclean]

Giovanni
Are we talking the rear axle / drive axle or front steering axle ?
Does your coach have two shocks on that axle or four ?

[Giovanni Bosch]

Sorry I should have said steering axle. Only 4 shock system 2 front 2 rear. Removing wheel and tire so the welder can do his work.

[Eric Maclean]

You'll need to raise the front of the vehicle to get the wheels off the ground .
1) with a breaker bar or impact break the torque on the wheel nuts ( don't loosen them or remove them yet)
2) place a block under your front hydraulic leveling jack and raise the vehicles to get wheels off the ground .
3 ) place jack stands under the vehicle frame ( under the front torque rod mounting frames to support the vehicle.)
4) lower the vehicle back onto those Jack stands (jacks stands for front must be at least 6 ton stands)
5) continue to remove wheels.

6) after completing the work the wheels should be torqued to 450 foot lbs.

[Frank Bergamo]

Also, just a reminder, the right/passenger side lugs are right hand threads, the left/driver side lugs are left hand threads. Good luck.

[Giovanni Bosch]

Thanks y’all!

Is it normal to not have any threads pas the lugnuts?

[Eric Maclean]

As a rule of thumb there should be at least three threads extending past the face of the lug nut.
However on your coach the wheels are mounted with ball nuts more commonly known as bud nuts these use a conical seat and cone shaped nut to center the wheel ( known as stud piloted ).
On the drive axle daul set up you will have two wheel nuts the first one screws on to the hub mounted stud this nut holds the inboard dual ( steel wheel rim )in place and being a steel wheel is torqued to 380 to 450 foot lbs max.
The inboard nut is threaded both inside and out side and has a square drive on the end to torque it in place with
The outboard dual wheel ( aluminium) is then mounted to that inner nut and a regular bud nut is screwed onto it and torqued to 450 foot lbs.( The reason for the two different torques is that the inboard Steel wheel is thinner and because these wheels are made with the tapered ball seat from both sides so they can be mounted either in board or out board the seat area is reduced even thinner and will crush when over torqued which will fail the rim on DOT inspection. The outboard ( aluminium) wheels are much thicker and do not have this problem.

The front lug nuts are different if you look closely at them they have a tapered ball as do the rears but in addition they have a bushing which extends into the lug hole in the rim this is to take up the extra space between the stud and the rim hole that the larger inboard nut would have occupied on the drive axle setup this way the front rims will be the same configuration as the rears.
If you look closely at the front wheel nuts you will find they are not threaded all the way to the outer face and the the stud does extend to the end of the threaded section inside the wheel nuts this is normal as the front nuts have as much or more threaded area as the rears do.
This has always been a common bone of contention with the DOT as their rule of thumb is that the stud should protrude past the end of the nut when in fact all they are really looking for is full thread engagement.

Hope this helps
Eric