Dust covers & wheel studs

[Spook50]

This Thursday I'll be attempting the knuckle rebuild. I plan to leave the dust covers off when I put everything back together, but I was wondering if I'd have to put washers on the nuts to act as spacers, or if it doesn't matter if that space is taken up or not.

Also, I'll be putting on new rotors, and was hoping to reuse my current wheel studs. Is this wise? I planned on getting just a couple as spares from the Toyota dealer downtown, just in case one or two of my current ones are buggered up at all.

 

[Ryan S.]

Probably wise to have a few extras on hand. My knuckles were just done, new rotors also. Everything was in good shape and no problems.

 

[KLF]

You can't leave the dust covers off, the seals in the knuckle sandwich need the thickness of them to seal properly. And you can't just use washers, the paper gaskets won't seal at all that way. You will also have to do something about the brake line mount tab.

Why are you planning to leave them off?

It's usually not a problem to re-use the studs, but they are cheap.