I’m pretty sure the reason that so few of us reckless hub greasers and stud/screw oilers have crashed into schools and old people’s homes in a ball of flame is that the basic design is very forgiving, with a very high safety factor.
It has to be - many people don’t use a torque wrench anyway, and Joe Public thinks wheel fastenings need to be really tight.
One interesting story to round off ; I read an account of a chap who fitted his own tow bar. He decided it would be a good idea to Waxoyl all the parts before he fitted it, which he did. The torque settings for the fastenings on tow bars are usually fairly high. He just could not reach the required torque with the Waxoyl on, the bolt just kept turning until it stripped the captive nut.
EDIT - I have no idea why the above has come out in different sized letters - I don’t do it on purpose.
When I first got my mk3 it was due a service. I took it to Hodgesons Mazda silver link Wallsend. All seemed fine when I got it back then after a few hundred miles I noticed black spots around the wheel rims. When I took one wheel off there was a load of copaslip between the alloy wheel and the hub. I took the car back. The service manager looked at me as though I was thick. He sent a cleaner with a cloth to wipe the wheels. I suggested that he needed to take the wheels off and clean away the excess. Couldn’t do that as all the hoists were full.
Needless to say I ended up doing it myself and wouldn’t touch Hodgesons Mazda with a bargepole.
As a sequel hodgesons sent me an mot reminder this year with a special offer MOT for £25. When I tried to book it in they were too busy for weeks ahead. Booked it into North Shields MOT centre next day where it flew through. It was worth paying £40 for the service and courtesy alone.
Having experienced many wheels stuck on hubs because garages had not used copperslip I would use Hodgesons Mazda like a shot ( or I would if I used garages at all)
I’ve always put a light smear of copaslip on the inside face of the central hole of the wheel, where it slides over the sticking-out bit in the middle of the hub (is this called a “Spigot”?) alloys or not.
But never on the mating face - this is the bit where surface-to-surface friction is required to prevent the wheel turning on the hub! This is just kept clean. (The function of the wheel studs/bolts/nuts is to clamp the two surfaces together, nothing more).
Never had a wheel stuck on a hub after the first time with a new car but with Alloys these came off once a year in the spring for a good clean and a bit of polish on the (non-mating) surfaces. Twice a year on the MX5 'cos I swop Summer/Winter tyres!
My neighbour bought a 4x4 where the previous owner hadn’t done this.He spent a LOOOONG time with a lump hammer getting each wheel of. And he’s a powerful bloke …
That’s interesting. I used copper grease sparingly on the wheel studs on my Mk.1 after I got the opposite advice - that the torque setting would be correct for nuts which did have copperslip, and that dry assembly might under-torque the nuts. Of course that was so very long ago that I can’t remember where I read it. Might even have been in the Enthusiast’s Workshop manual, but I don’t want to put words into Ron Grainger’s mouth; I really don’t recall.
I have just checked my handbook to be certain. It states:- WARNING. Don’t apply oil or grease to wheel nuts, bolts. Applying oil or grease to wheel nuts and bolts is dangerous. The wheel nuts could loosen while driving and cause the tyre to come off, resulting in an accident. In addition, the wheel nuts and bolts could be damaged if tightened more than necessary. Do not apply oil or grease to wheel nuts and bolts and do not tighten the wheel nuts beyond the recommended tightening torque. Page 7 -8. I do not seem to be able to find the section which states that anyone who ignores this will be tied to the gun carriage wheels at dawn and given two dozen lashes!
Oil or grease sure…but copper slip used in the correct (sparing) quantity is a very poor lubricant.
I think if a smear of copper slip actually caused sheared or self-undoing wheel studs in the real world, the roadside would be littered with beached cars as it is fairly common practice to use it in this way.
We get quite a lot of main dealer serviced cars. A few inspect the brakes through the wheels without taking them off ( most would deny this) but many mechanics are under time pressure or bonuses . Then we get them to service mostly three years onwards and have to beat the daylights out off them to get the wheels off. We then have to clean off the corrosion and lightly smear the hub centre with copper slip to prevent it happening again.
As for studs 95% of the time we dont oil or grease them, but on the odd occasion nuts or studds can be corroded and are even hard to undo, common sense ( lacking nowadays) requires a little copper slip to prevent threads picking up and actually using all the torque on the nut to do the job of holding the wheel tight and not wasting the torque simply turning the nut.
Absolutely, copaslip [note the spelling] is an anti seize compound developed originally for the maritime world. It subsequently became used on oil rigs anad other places where extreme weather conditions are experienced.
So, use it pretty much anywhere when you may need to re do a fastening, to keep parts moving [brake likeages etc etc ] but do not use it as a lubricant
Exactly the opposite guys. Use a smear of thin oil if the threads are corroded as it will not have much in the way of extreme pressure lubrication and so will protect the metal without changing the friction too much. Don’t use ep lubes/antisieze inc moly, graphite, copaslip etc as they will significantly affect the torque and cause both over-tightening and easy loosening. Most importantly do not use anything at all on the nut taper/seat where most of the friction is.
As someone who removes a fair number of wheels, I would use just a smear of normal grease on the spigot to prevent seizure. Now I admit it is a long time since I did chemist but to my (distant) recollection, Aluminum and Copper are at quite different end of the galvanic scale and if you want to prevent a battery occurring you want to prevent electrical conductivity, so firstly keep the water out and secondly don’t use metals that are going to react.
I thought copper grease was for heat transfer, not corrosion.
I have used it since time began, as a anti seize compound and also as a lube around the braking system with other greases and spray lubes, I also use it as a future protector, a smear of slip on the hub face is not a biggie and as been done for years to stop the alloy fusing to the metal, I am sure Nick as hit a fair few that have welded them selves and becomes lets hit it to break the seal without bring on any damage. Because I have had plenty, plenty over the years, and trust me it happens a lot, and not just on these roadsters.<o:p></o:p>
And never as anyone that as been to me had a wheel fall off because of it, or work loose ,I would hope that when the owner as gone for new tyres or they are in the middle of nowhere that the rim as come away freely to remove and got back on there way again.<o:p></o:p>
There is a product that you can buy which fits onto the hub of the brake disc, which was sold by Moss .that was a thin disc to stop fusing, so I don’t see the problem, if it is about how tight it locks down?? Then that means that a spacer is a no no because in effect it is just a big washer.<o:p></o:p>
I have never hit a problem using it, nor as anyone else I have used it for on there roadsters, as I am sure I would of been the first to know about it, this thread is nothing new and keeps coming around every couple of years, the biggest problem is when some dong slaps a hand full on rather than a smear, so it ends up everywhere, it’s like anything, use common sense.
I am sure if you work on as many cars as we have and do then this OH MAY GOD DON’T DO IT, GOD SENT IT DOWN WITH THE TABLETS, will change ever how this product is used.
“The torque under acceleration or braking should be transmitted mainly by the friction between the faces, not by the wheel studs which are designed to provide the tensile force to pull the faces together”
What absolute rubbish!
To have friction would be to suggest that two surfaces are free of each other at some point - because friction is caused by the interaction of two surfaces moving against each other in opposite directions, it would also suggest heat is involved because that is what friction causes - so this is saying that the wheel and it’s hub is a clutch mechanism - Piffle!!.
So how does this motor inustry expert engineer explain how a cylinder head remains mated to the block with…oh my lord, flat nuts and not tapered ones. Gravity? Gravity and friction? Weight?
No, it relys on the same principle as the wheels - that two surfaces are mated together to form a solid body under torque - the torque applied to the threads of the studs.
Copperslip is used to prevent two dissimilar metals fusing together…and this is especially important with an aluminium alloy and steel.
] is an 
