Sheared pins from hub.

[MD427]

Early Contemporary w/ 427 and Jag rear end.

Pulled the wheels off to do some work. One spinner was really stuck on, a lot harder than I installed it. Though I might have forgot the antisieze... well that wasn't it. Turns out, had sheared off all 6 pins on the driver's rear and the mag wheel had tightened itself into the hub...

What's the resolution/options - can the pins just be replaced? New 6 pin replacement hub? More traditional "modern" replacement hub?
Edit: I understand the pins are threaded in and generally replaceable - I guess what I"m asking is that the best solution? Will they break again? Is there a better option?

The curious thing, is last time I had the wheel off, they seemed good on visual inspection. And I know the car has been driven moderately in that time, no hard launches/aggressive shifting that should have been putting excess loading on the rear end. No stoplight dragstrip heroics. Are the pins that weak or was something else amiss?

[1985 CCX]

Holy smokes.
Never happened to me. These should be screwed into the hub and on the backside held by lock nut.
My feeling is the wheel must have come loose and once the weight of the car on the hub “boom” pins broke.
Hmmmm

[mvanhorn8893]

Good afternoon,
If you want to send me an email I can share some info(dimensions) with you that I found while building my car. I caught it and had my wheels machined to clear the radius on the hub but the wheels I received didn't have enough of a clearance chamfer on them to clear the radius at the hub do they wouldn't sit flat against the face that the 6 pins are screwed onto.( I was able to slide feeler gages in between the face and wheel before I had them machined to clear the radius) I would think that the wheel would have had to be loose at some point to move enough to shear off all 6 pins. I have not had any issues but modified my wheel before driving the car. I'd think you would need to drill and use and easy out to remove the remaining portion of the pins.

mvanhorn8893@gmail.com

Mike

[patrickt]

MD427 -- there has to be something else wrong. Non-defective six pins are stronger than the half shafts or the normal stub axles. If you do a search on here, or other sites that tend to have Jag based rears, you will find a good bit of sheared off stubbies (not uncommon) and twisted half shafts (less common) but I can't even remember a thread where somebody sheared off all six pins. Especially if you weren't doing something like hard launches out of the hole with drag slicks and a 600HP mill (which is a prescription for sheared stubbies). I don't know what the answer is, but it's going to be something we don't often see. Pull all three other wheels (especially the other rear wheel) and give them a really hard inspection. Maybe they're not really pins at all but something somebody whipped up from the hardware store and they're Grade 2 or less? Very strange.

[KarlzEE Bebout]

I also have a "jag" type rear end and have sheared a pin or two. Finally realized that the problem was that the pins were longer than the depth of the holes in the backside of the wheel. Once I measured the depth of the hole and the length of the pin, I had an easy fix by just shortening the pins appropriately. I checked all four wheels and found the problem only on the rears. My 2¢

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by KarlzEE Bebout

I also have a "jag" type rear end and have sheared a pin or two. Finally realized that the problem was that the pins were longer than the depth of the holes in the backside of the wheel. Once I measured the depth of the hole and the length of the pin, I had an easy fix by just shortening the pins appropriately. I checked all four wheels and found the problem only on the rears. My 2¢

That's a nugget of gold. I've never heard of pins being too long for the hole before.

[KarlzEE Bebout]

I didn't like it. Finally buggered up one wheel enough that I had to scrap it.

[xb-60]

Originally Posted by mvanhorn8893

....I'd think you would need to drill and use and easy out to remove the remaining portion of the pins....

On the off-chance you don't know whay an "easy-out" is....



You drill a hole and screw in the appropriate size easy-out (anticlockwise) and it removes your broken stud

Cheers,
Glen

[Dominik]

I sheared a few off because the wind nut wasn't tight enough. Or was it the pins? That was long ago... My threads were undamaged so I replaced the pins.

Perhaps ask Bob P at ERA, they have the same.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by KarlzEE Bebout

I didn't like it. Finally buggered up one wheel enough that I had to scrap it.

OK, were the pins too long or the holes in the wheel too shallow?

[KarlzEE Bebout]

Patrick, I don't know if the pins were too long or the holes too shallow. No idea how to determine. At least it was an easy fix, once I determined the issue.

[MD427]

Ok. Thanks for the feedback all. Got some new pins coming, going to replace all the rears as a precaution. Interesting note on pins too long/wheel to shallow. Will double check this go around, for flush wheel to hub fitment.

I'm really at a loss as to what happened.
I do recall that I drove the car home from the garage last time with no safety wire. Once home I wired them. Though the spinners were tight, I suppose its possible that one wasn't and broke and tightened itself down further. In any case the safety wire didn't budge in the couple hundred miles I put on after that.

Though even if it broke later, I guess the wheel rotation could drag the nut forward via the safety wire without breaking it. Spinner was tight into the wheel, which was tight into the hub, it was tough to get it all off.

[sioux612]

Had the same thing happen to ours a couple of years ago but it was quite noticeable immidiately because it was slipping the moment it sheared off.

We had the shop remove and replace them, it did take them some elbow grease and we feared that the wheels would have to be replaced due to the pockets being enlarged by the pins smashing around a bit but in the end all was good, thankfully.