How to Measure ATV Wheel Bolt Pattern
Before purchasing a new set of wheels for your ATV, you must measure the ATV wheel bolt pattern. This provides you with the necessary information regarding the layout of your wheels and which wheels will work well with your ATV. Without knowing how to measure the ATV wheel bolt pattern, you may spend a bunch of money and not get what you wanted.
There are three general bolt patterns with 3, 4, or 5 lugs. Each one is measured differently, making things a bit more complicated than they maybe should be. However, each one also has its benefits over the other, so making your choice and measurements correctly will help you make your machine exactly what you want. The bolt pattern measurement is written with both the number of bolts and the measurements you find, so the variation can be huge.
Here, we’ll look at each of the different bolt patterns and talk about how to measure them so you can work towards getting the best set of wheels for your ride.
Three-Lug
A three-lug bolt pattern is possibly the most difficult to measure because you are using an imaginary circle in order to do the measurements, so you might not get it completely perfect. If you’re measuring this way, it’s worth looking up your specific make and model to find out what the measurement should be for the wheel and see how close or far off you are.
In order to measure a wheel with a three-lug bolt pattern, you’ll draw an imaginary circle that passes through the center of all three lugs. From this, you will measure the diameter of this circle and have your measurement.
A three-lug measurement will be written as 3/90, where three is the number of bolts and 90 is the measurement in millimeters.
Four-Lug
A four-lug bolt pattern is much simpler when talking about measurements. These are also one of the most common styles of wheel that you will find on your ATVs, so it can be easy to find the best new wheel you’re wanting with this lug pattern.
In order to measure the four-lug pattern, simply choose one bolt and measure from the center of that bolt to the center of the one directly opposite (diagonally) it. This is as if you are cutting a square into two triangles and the diagonal line is your measurement.
These will be written as 4/110. 110 is a very common measurement, but you may be riding on something a lot larger like a 144.
Five-Lug
Finally, you need to measure a five-lug bolt pattern. In order to complete this task, you will measure from the center of one bolt hole to the back of the hole two away from it. Essentially, you are measuring in a similar way to the four-lug pattern, but measuring to the back of one of the holes rather than the middle.
You will also see this written as 5/110, 5/115,etc.
