Ball Seat Open Lug Nuts Out There?

[Mark Lewalski]

I installed sets of studs into my Thing drums all around and wanted to use my original wide 5 wheels. Found out that the sets of EMPI studs/acorn nuts I was sold weren't what I asked for... the nuts have tapered seats and don't match the VW wheel.

I didn't check the nuts until I had already installed the studs... my bad there.

Anyone have a handle on where to find 12mm x 1.5 ball seat lug nuts? I would prefer open end over closed.

Thanks,
Mark
_________________
'89 Vanagon GL Wolfsburg "Bluestar" (given to and owned by my son now)
'87 Vanagon Weekender
'74 Thing

[74 Thing]

http://www.piersideparts.net/mm5/merchant.mvc?

There are washers available so you can use your current acorn lug nuts

[Mark Lewalski]

Thanks, I realize there are washers to adapt from taper to ball seat but I'd rather not use them if I can find the proper lug nuts.

Mark
_________________
'89 Vanagon GL Wolfsburg "Bluestar" (given to and owned by my son now)
'87 Vanagon Weekender
'74 Thing

[74 Thing]

Pierside and Moore carries what you are looking for and Hondas use the 12 x 1.5MM ball seat lugs as well.

What I discovered is that there can be a different radius to the ball seat (R12, R13, R14), and could never confirm which was correct for the stock VW wheel.

http://www.mooreparts.com/search.php?search_query=ball%20seat&section=product

[mhoriuchi]

R14 is correct


Typically, the radius of a ball seat is in correlation to the stud size. So an M12 tends to be an R12 and an M14 is an R14. Oddball hybrid stuff like an R13 radius on an M14 bolts is mainly seen on newer custom wheels (usually so you have to buy their proprietary bolts).
VW had both M12 and M14 lug bolts and M14 lug nuts and the radius correlated to their size . Porsche only ever used M14 stuff on their air-cooled cars that I'm aware of and they were all R14. Porsche also shared parts with VW anywhere they could since it was cheaper (it's easy to forget how small of a company Porsche was at the time).
The lug bolts in the listing's VW part number is N0201121 (or N201121 way back when before they needed more digits). Porsche used the same part number - just for giggles I pulled 356, 911, and 914 parts books to verify. You can actually order these exact same lug nuts from both your local VW and Porsche dealerships under that part number still (but from VW they are $5.09 each while they are $11.10 each from Porsche).

[mondshine]

My old Thing (the green one) had CSP front disc brakes that came with 14mm studs and R14 ball end lug nuts. I re-tapped my stock rear drums for the same studs and lug nuts.
No more "juggling act" putting the wheels on; big improvement.

Even our daily drivers, modern VW's, still use lug bolts; don't know why they do that.