No I'm not anyone called V Bird. I am new to the Maserati marque.
Sprogs, I'm not having a go, just giving some subjective opinion. I am quite happy for you to disagree and I won't be upset. If people have all the facts, then they can make their own risk assessment.
As a note to you personally, I would say that if you make these in your spare time and are either not protected by product and professional indemnity insurance, or are not deferring responsibility through a disclaimer and warning, then I pray for you that your product holds up. Litigators would make a meal of a broken aftermarket wheel stud in a large personal injury suit.
On your other comment, I quite expect Maserati's wheel nuts to rust - they are made of chrome plated mild steel. We do of course have little idea as to the process they went through (was it triple chrome i.e. copper, nickel, chrome or just straight chrome onto the steel?)
The fact that the original nuts rust is not a safety issue. If people are having them chromed and not de-embrittled, then that is.
Ever used or gone under the name of V Bird by anychance there' is a reason why i ask
regards loz
I am struggling a bit with some of the techie stuff here, but I am following with interest.
Totally agree Sniffer , do you have a nickname Sniffer ,its really erking me and making me think of some hound dragging his snout round the floor everytime i write your name , can i call you jeff or sommetSorry to bore you Loz. Risk of snapping wheel studs is kinda important though.
V Bird..What ever happened to him....Remember pulling out my street once and he was at a house around the corner....Lived miles away so was a big suprise...
Shame VBird isnt, would make for a nail biting saga
regards loz
Having just had my bolt tips chromed by classics and chrome the issue of hydrogen embrittlement is a worry for me. I will find out whether this is a problem they are aware of and have any thoughts on it. However i would throw out one thought here. I suspect the first person to have the bolts chromed was probably ten years ago. I have never come across any one who has experienced a broken wheel bolt. I strongly suspect that the chromed bolts are subject to some Hydrogen effects but are so over specified that it is not enough to make them unsafe. I note in the above article the effect is really only a problem where the material is operating close to its limits. I know in the oil business its a huge issue with down hole pipe which generally only has about 30% safety margin on tensile strength and they have seen fractures, and so on in high H2S wells. I suspect the safety margin on these bolts is probably 200-300%. There was also one remark about why the bolts rust when other manufacturers don't. This I would guess is because it is higher tensile rating than the others. This is a warning to be careful here as I have said before, since it clearly indicates that these are quite high strength bolts. I considered getting replacements before and after looking into it thought better of it, and went down the chroming route. Seems like i should have got used to the rust! I also have had plastic bolt covers made at one time and they actually looked great but were a real pain to get on and off.
I rang classics and chrome today to check and they do not embrittle the bolts before chroming them, should we be worried, I had mine done 18 months ago.