Installing wheel studs

I’m posting this on behalf of a friend who owns a 2001 Cavalier. One of the wheel studs broke when removing the wheel nut. So we tried to install a new stud but there is insufficient clearance between the wheel hub and the steering knuckle to place the new stud in the hole.

Are we missing something or does the wheel hub have to be pulled off to install new studs.

There is a "sweet" spot in which you need to line it up in. It WILL go in without having to remove the whole hub. Its too hard for me to explain, but if worse comes to worse just remove the whole hub.

Thanks - any chance you could say roughly where that spot is - above, below or to the side. We are reluctant to pull the hub off since to reinstall, it will need to be pressed in and I cannot see how to do that without pulling out the whole steering knuckle and placing in a press.

Thanks - any chance you could say roughly where that spot is - above, below or to the side. We are reluctant to pull the hub off since to reinstall, it will need to be pressed in and I cannot see how to do that without pulling out the whole steering knuckle and placing in a press.


Oh hell, i only had to do this once and it was a pain still and i'm not near my car to look at describe where it is. Try doing a forum wide search on www.j-body.org. There is a lot of info on there and you just might find it. But you don't have to press it back in. Its just splined and when you put your stock wheel on tighten to spec 100ft/lbs for steelies or 90ft/lbs for aluminum and they will seat them selves.

Thanks for the web link – I already found some info there on doing this. It seems like you need to remove the 3 torx bolts to remove the housing on which the hub is mounted, off the steering knuckle. We did consider doing this but ran out of time.

As for pressing – I was not referring to the stud. At one point we contemplated pulling the hub off the wheel bearing but then realized it would have to be pressed back in. I have a 20 ton hydraulic press so it could have been done but we would have had to pull the whole knuckle out which would have involved separating it from the strut, lower control arm and tie rod.

Our wheel bearings are a sealed unit. You pull that apart in anyway, i'm pretty sure your not going to be able to get it back together properly.

All you have to do is, remove the nut on the steering cv shaft, get all the braking components out of the way ( rotor and caliper), with a punch hit the cv shaft to break it loose a bit so it has some play in and out, remove the 3 torqs bolts and then with a plastic mallet tap the perimeter of the wheel bearing and it will come out of the steering knuckle. When you reinstall the wheel bearing you do not have to press it back into the steering knuckle.

Thanks again for the information - you have been really helpful. We will try this out this weekend.

Thanks again for the information - you have been really helpful. We will try this out this weekend.


I've pretty much torn these cars apart in every way shape and form bro. So I pretty much can say, been there, done that.