Wheel studs and lug nut question.....

[yellocharge68]

I have a 1968 Dodge Charger with four wheel drum brakes.  I am endeavoring to pull the wqheels off as I rebuild the Front suspecnsion and I wanted to replace all 20 of the lug studs and the lug nuts. Several of the lugs look a little worse for the wear and all 10 of the one on the left side are the left handed thread lugs.  Does anyone here have any experience on the removal an replacement of these studs/lugs??
  I am going to paint all four of the steel wheels black and then clear coat them,  I really want the "accorn" style lugs and dont know if they exist for MOPARS. any ideas or info would be greatly appreciated . 

[Ghoste]

They are just press fit into the drum so unless someone has welded them in or they are rusted into place, they should come out okay.   Before trying to knock them out, you need to be certein that the drum is supported from behind as it's pretty easy to knock the center out of the drum and then you're screwed.   Find a solid block   of wood that fits the center of the drum and drill a hole in it big enough for the head of the stud to drop into.   Then just give the stud a whack.
Putting the new ones in shouldn't be too hard.   All I've ever done was line them up and get them started into the hole and then pull them in by tightening a wheel on them.
You could also just take the drums and studs to a machine shop and ask them to press them off and on.

[John_Kunkel]

The front brake drum studs are swaged to hold the drum in place on the hub, simply driving the studs out without first removing the swage can enlarge the hole in the hub and make the replacement studs loose. There is a dedicated cutter for removing the swages, many automotive machine shops will have it.

This pic shows the swaged stud on the left and the unswaged stud on the right:

[Ghoste]

Just the fronts?

[Chryco Psycho]

just the fronts , this retains the brake drum on the hub

[ericsmith1979]

Im having a hard time finding the correct wheel studs for my charger. where did you get yours?

[ericsmith1979]

 I was able to find a wheel stud from NAPA that worked great. the part number is 641-1610

[resq302]

We had a problem with some loose wheel studs on the front hubs of our 70 chally vert.  We ended up having a friend weld the stud to the back of the hub which allows us to remove the drum from the hub with no problem.  We figure that when the wheel is torqued to the drum and hub, it holds everything nice and tight together and have had no problems yet in the 3 years weve had the car.