Lug Nuts

This isn't one of John's 10 commandments, but almost. The Expedition Exchange crew have a serious lugnut fetish. The lengths to which they will go to achieve the correct lug nut look is incredible. This is the height of anal retentiveness.

Expedition Exchange already sells the Genuine RRD500010 lug nuts from Land Rover for $4 each.

But, for whatever reason they need to have the flanged version, ANR3116.



But, they aren't happy with merely having the correct functionality out of their plain steel lugnuts mounted on plain steel rims. They also need to achieve the correct style. I'm not sure when black was determined to be the correct style and silver was not, as both are in fact Genuine Land Rover parts. Maybe it's the Camel Trophy connection, but then they laugh at anybody who makes a Camel Trophy replica truck so... I give up. Anyway, this exchange is just priceless:

John Lee:

The ANR3116 lug nuts come from LR plated in silver zinc. I wanted the lug nuts
black so that they would look as close as possible to the RRD500010 lug nuts. So
I had them plated with black zinc at Aerodynamic Plating, a local plating shop. They did a superb job as well. I'm very pleased.


Chris Snell:

I want to get my lug nuts plated, too. I'm in the process of rebuilding my hubs so now would be a good time. Nobody in town does black zinc so I'm going to have to send them to Houston. The guy has a $90 minimum tank fee so I might as well send him other pieces as well. Did you have anything else besides your lug nuts plated?


John Lee:

I think $90 is about why I paid for my lug nut plating.

I don't think I had anything else plated with my lug nuts.


Chris Snell:

I think I'm going to ditch my flange-less lug nuts and spring for the ANR3116s. No sense in doing this half-ass. If anybody else wants to send a set of ANR3116 through the bath with mine, let me know and we can work something out.


Marcus Vitale:

i might be interested. i just did the swap and jack was kind enough to give me a set of lugs, but i might do the flanged lugs for back up. it's difficult to use an impact with out scoring the powder coat on the rim.


Rob Davison:

Chris I am interested. Did you buy the nuts yet?

I would like to have these waiting for when I have my rims painted this spring.


Jack:

So I take it there are no longer any reservations about the strength of the spare lug nuts being used for the road wheels?

(Note: Yes, that's right, they're using nuts intended to hold spare wheel to hold the road wheels on, so that they can achieve a certain look.)


Steve Bernard:

I had the flanged lug nuts mounted on my Rostyles. It didn’t take long before the flange and the nut became fused together. I switched to the factory steel lug, which fit better on my rims.

John Lee:

I've had nothing but good luck with my flanged/spare lug nuts.

I think I have about 40 or so of them. I bought plenty of spares for my stash and them had plated as well because I feared that I would break a few here and there. But I don't think I've broken one yet.

I did lubricate the bearing surfaces between the flange and the nut after plating and before installation. Perhaps that is why mine have never fused from corrosion or heavy use. I also lubricate them whenever I remove them to rotate wheels. I also anti-seize the wheel studs whenever I remove the wheels, so I've never had to apply the heavy horsepower to remove the lug nuts.

Even with my good luck, I would recommend to anyone contemplating these lug nuts to get a few extra just in case. The last thing you want is a white lug nut mixed in with your black ones. That would look awful. You're having a bunch of them plated, so get some extra lug nuts just in case.

Wow, so $80 for a set of lugnuts, plus $90 to have them plated, plus shipping 3 times (supplier to customer, customer to plater, plater to customer), just to get some black lugnuts that were never intended to hold road wheels in the first place. It should also be said that applying anti-seize to lugnuts is a somewhat contentious issue in the mechanical world. Lubrication of the threaded joint greatly increases the tension on the bolt, and could lead to stud failure.