Wheel assembly for vehicle

Claim 1

A wheel assembly for a vehicle comprising: a hub including a tubular body and a radial flange formed around an outer peripheral surface of said hub body and having opposite radial faces; (b) a separate rim including an annular body disposed coaxially with said hub body and a radial flange formed around an inner peripheral surface of said rim body and having opposite radial faces, said hub flange and said rim flange being mated together at their one radial faces, (c) fastening means releasably connecting said hub flange and said rim flange together to fix said rim with respect to said hub, said fastening means comprising a plurality of bolts each passing through said mated rim and hub flanges in circumferentially spaced relation, and a plurality of nuts each threaded on a distal end of a respective one of said bolts, there being provided a plurality of washers each mated with and fixedly secured to the other radial face of said hub flange by said bolts passing through said washers, each washer including a base and a projection extending generally radially outwardly from said base so as to serve as said projection means; and (d) projection means provided on said hub flange and extending generally radially outwardly of that portion of the inner peripheral surface of said rim body disposed adjacent to the other radial face of said rim flange, the distance between a radial outer end of said projection means and the one radial face of said hub flange being less than the distance between the other radial face of said rim flange and an axial outer end of said that portion remote from the other radial face of said rim flange, said projection means comprising a plurality of projections spaced circumferentially of said hub flange.