Everyone dreads the moment your vehicle makes a sound it’s not supposed to. It happened to us in November when we noticed a noise coming from the truck on one side when we used the brakes.
Given the age and mileage of the truck, we decided replacing the rotors, brake pads, and calipers was the best way to proceed. The project snowballed from there, as projects often do. Since we would already be doing the rear brakes, we decided we might as well replace the fronts, too. And if we were already replacing brake pads, rotors, and calipers, we might as well replace the brake lines and bleed the brakes, too.
We spent the better part of a weekend doing all of that work. Finally, the tires were back in place and we were almost finished. All that was left to do was torque the lug nuts. Unfortunately, as we tightened the first one…the stud snapped in half.
With a 400-mile trip with the RV in a week and a half, we now had a new problem. Since we weren’t keen on making such a long trip while being down one wheel stud, we needed to get this taken care of before we left.
Why A Blog Post?
We did a lot of research online trying to learn how difficult it would be to replace rear studs for our truck. Since everything we found was for different years or models, we thought it might be worth it to write a post about what we learned while replacing the rear studs on our 2008 Chevy Silverado 2500HD.
Before We Get Started
A few things I think are important to note…
- Photos are limited. We were already at least halfway through the work when we had the idea for a blog post. And with that said…
- This is just an overview of our experience. It is meant to answer questions that someone with this particular year/model truck might have and fill in the gaps from the video we watched (link in the Resources section). It is not meant to be an exhaustive, step-by-step guide for this project.
- Our truck has a 14-bolt, full-floating rear end. We think that without that, we would have had to open up the differential, making this project a lot more involved.
Parts/Tools We Used
- grade 8 washers (7 in total)
- replacement wheel seal
- axle shaft flange gasket
- wheel stud installer
- hammer
Resources
Changing the Rear Axel Seals
This video was about changing the rear axle seals, not about changing studs, but a lot of the info applied and really helped us.
Basic Steps
- lift the right rear tire off the ground and remove the lug nuts and tire
- remove caliper
- remove rotor
- put oil pan under the wheel hub
- removed axel bolts (gear oil will likely come out)
- slide axle out, stand upright (somewhere out of the way) to keep the axle clean
- remove clip (magnet) and hub nut
- use pry bar and pull wheel hub off
- with large hammer, pound studs out of hub
- insert new studs and hammer in as much of the way as you can
- use stud installer, washers, a nut, and an impact gun to get the studs in the rest of the way
- put the hub back on
- insert hub nut and then magnetic clip
- insert axle
- put back axle bolts, rotor, and caliper
- put on tire and lug nuts
- lower truck
Lessons Learned
- Having the right size stud installer and washers makes all the difference. We ordered the larger one. As soon as it arrived, we knew it was too big, but we decided to give it a try. The force of the impact drove it over the washers.
- Use the right washers. Grade 5 washers get smashed together and had to be almost chiseled off of the studs. Grade 8 washers are stronger and much better for this job.
- We started with 3 washers, a nut, and the stud installer to get the stud some of the way. We found that if we tried to get it the whole way with just three washers, the stud installer would get stuck around the base of the stud (because of the way the bolt and the hub are tapered). To prevent this, after some of the way, we added four more washers (below the stud installer) to get the stud the rest of the way. When we tried using all seven from the beginning, there weren’t enough threads for the impact to get a good grip.