Problem installing wheel spacers on M59

[caballero59]

I finally got around to installing the spacers and discovered that the lug nuts on the wheels fit so tightly in the spacer holes that there is no extra space to insert a socket to tighten the spacer onto the hub. It appears that new lug nuts will be required or an extremely thin-walled 3/4" drive socket. I was wondering how other folks solved this problem?

Thanks

 

[caballero59]

Solved it.

 

[HillStreet]

Solved it.

How? Are you saying the studs are too short, or are you saying (new studs) project out too near the frame? Just curious.

 

[JWR]

I finally got around to installing the spacers and discovered that the lug nuts on the wheels fit so tightly in the spacer holes that there is no extra space to insert a socket to tighten the spacer onto the hub. It appears that new lug nuts will be required or an extremely thin-walled 3/4" drive socket. I was wondering how other folks solved this problem?

Thanks

I was antsi about the same issue when I installed the Bora brand spacers on my B2150 last year. I first thought my regular sockets would not fit in the holes BUT they just barely did fit. The only alternative I knew of was "thin walled sockets" which I started to go buy but then did not have to do that.

So as the other guy asked, what did you end up doing ?
Thanks.

 

[caballero59]

I was antsi about the same issue when I installed the Bora brand spacers on my B2150 last year. I first thought my regular sockets would not fit in the holes BUT they just barely did fit. The only alternative I knew of was "thin walled sockets" which I started to go buy but then did not have to do that.

So as the other guy asked, what did you end up doing ?
Thanks.

I am sheepish to answer this. The spacer comes with lug nuts that are screwed onto the studs where the wheels mount. They have a slight taper. These nuts that come with the spacer are removed from the lugs on the spacer and reused to bolt the spacer to the tractor hub. The original lug large nuts with the flat bottom face that came with the tractor are then used to bolt the wheel to the spacer. This is the correct way and doing this provides ample room for a 1/2" drive socket in the spacer holes.

 

[JWR]

Sure ! Me too. No need to be sheepish. You describe it well. I had just forgotten the details of how that worked out. I know i came away from it realizing how thorough the Bora people were in taking all that into account.

 

[caballero59]

Now I'm completely stumped. I finally got the time to install the spacers on the M59 and the studs installed in the spacers and the wheel lug studs are different thread. The tractor lug nuts are ridiculously and unnecessarily big and completely fill the spacer hole so there is no room for a socket. I was thinking that I could use the small nuts that come with the spacer to bolt the hub to the tractor and use the original wheel lug nuts to bolt the wheel to the spacer but even though they are both fine thread, after several turns, they get tight.

 

[JWR]

Now I'm completely stumped. I finally got the time to install the spacers on the M59 and the studs installed in the spacers and the wheel lug studs are different thread. The tractor lug nuts are ridiculously and unnecessarily big and completely fill the spacer hole so there is no room for a socket. I was thinking that I could use the small nuts that come with the spacer to bolt the hub to the tractor and use the original wheel lug nuts to bolt the wheel to the spacer but even though they are both fine thread, after several turns, they get tight.

Wow ! OK, that is a serious issue. You really need to insist that the manufacturer of your spacers corrects the "threads don't fit" problem. Sounds a lot like metric versus English threads OR a differing count of threads per inch or threads per cm (!!) Thankfully I had no such problems with the Bora brand units I bought. For a moment I thought that I was going to have to go to thin walled sockets to fit around the nuts inside the holes in the machined aluminum billet but, NO, it was just close and the regular (standard Craftsman) sockets worked fine. I suspect if you get on the phone with your manufacturer they will talk through the problem and EITHER know immediately what it is or do the right things to help you out.

Note: Kubota has some oddball issues with bolts and threads. FOR EXAMPLE, on my B2150's (I have two) I was swapping the attachment hardware from one to the other for the belly mower. The bolts that fit into pre-drilled and threaded holes in the frame are fine-thread-peculiar (even for metric) size bolts. I needed and bought a few more bolts having to leave 1 or 2 on the donating machine because they serve dual functions. As I recall 13mm bolts. It SEEMS like the plain common 13mm bolts would fit ... and they do for just a turn or two and then they tighten up. At that point you find out the hard way that they require a larger number of threads per cm than the more common bolts I had bought.

 

[caballero59]

So it appears that according to both yours and my experience, it is possible that Kubota uses different pitches of fine thread?

 

[JWR]

I can only say that I have found strange threading selections by Kubota. Whether they are CONSISTENT in an areas like your wheels studs/holes is a somewhat different question. If they are consistent (even if oddball) on the M59 wheel threads your spacer manufacturer should have long since picked up on that and matched them.