Wheel Nut

[ab56452001]

Hi ,just helped a friend remove a lock wheel nut , boy o boy what a drama !. My mate had lost the special nut removing socket , we tried every combo of socket known to man , all to no avail , after 2 hours i suggested we add a couple of dobs of weld to the inside of the closest fitting socket , after much banging around to fit the socket on , finally of came the lock wheel nut !, the wheels had previously been reshod with new tyres , and they used a rattle gun to do them up . One should always insist on the fitter doing the last tightening sequence by hand , as all the other nuts were murder to get off aswell .

 

[GrahamGKD]

The nuts (well bolts actually) and tool on my Skoda became 'rounded' and would not engage sufficiently to undo the bolts. I tried to order a new tool but there are several types - my tool had a 6 or a 9 stamped on the end of it but no one could tell me which it was - there was no way of telling which way up to read it!! I was fully prepared to weld a piece of flat onto the offending bolts to remove them but the Skoda dealer offered to have a go with their 'master' tool. That was no good though, but the Skoda mechanic butchered the offending bolts of by just hammering a socket over the smooth rounded part of the bolt so hard that he was able to remove the bolt by friction / interference fit alone. All the time he was doing this I was thinking 'I'm glad he's doing that with one of his sockets and not mine'.

I've just reverted to ordinary bolts now - no one has nicked my wheels yet. I'm kind of assuming that an organised thief would find a way of nicking them with or without the locking nuts if they wanted to?

Graham.

 

[ab56452001]

Yep , thought of cutting of the end of an old wheel brace and welding it on to nut , last resort though !..

 

[madkayaker]

The nuts (well bolts actually) and tool on my Skoda became 'rounded' and would not engage sufficiently to undo the bolts. I tried to order a new tool but there are several types - my tool had a 6 or a 9 stamped on the end of it but no one could tell me which it was - there was no way of telling which way up to read it!! I was fully prepared to weld a piece of flat onto the offending bolts to remove them but the Skoda dealer offered to have a go with their 'master' tool. That was no good though, but the Skoda mechanic butchered the offending bolts of by just hammering a socket over the smooth rounded part of the bolt so hard that he was able to remove the bolt by friction / interference fit alone. All the time he was doing this I was thinking 'I'm glad he's doing that with one of his sockets and not mine'.

I've just reverted to ordinary bolts now - no one has nicked my wheels yet. I'm kind of assuming that an organised thief would find a way of nicking them with or without the locking nuts if they wanted to?

Graham.

they would just nick the car there is a few tools out there to remove them when you loose/ damage the nut but buttery seams to work best

 

[stormin]

I've used a gator grip socket with some success on a few rounded nuts and only been defeated once.
My Dad brought it back as a gift from the USA and when I first saw it thought it would be the ideal tool for alloy wheel thieves.
Useless on Land Rover wheel nuts though as they're too big.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GATOR-GRIP-3-...t=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item20b0434dba

 

[BIG JAY VTR]

i bought a special kit from snap-on HA HA HA what a laugh,, broke it the first time i used it and resorted to braying a socket over the wheel bolts and then knocking the bolt out of the socket in the vice with a punch,,, kit is still sat in my box 6yrs on, (broken) as snap-on deemed it to be user error that damaged it,,, grrr

 

[Normsthename]

Had a similar thing happen with my brothers Volvo, they had been done up superhuman tight by some **** in a garage.
Tried to remove the security bolt using the special tool, but a piece of the metal ring broke off the wheel bolt so that you could not get any purchase with the special tool
Worse thing was the wheels were alloy and the nuts were flush with the alloy
In the end I welded a large high tensile bolt to what remained of the wheel nut.
I then realised that I did'nt have a socket that size.............
So I welded a 6 foot length of 25mm box section to the bolt
Even with that length extension the bolt was really tight and it took me and my brother pulling on the lever, it came off with an almighty crack!

Andy

 

[droopsnoot]

Had the same problem on my old Audi, went in for new tyres on a Friday and needed to fit new brake pads over the weekend but couldn't get the wheels off to do it.

Took it back Monday morning and asked the fitter if he could undo the wheelnuts, which he couldn't. "Who tightened these up?" he asked, to which I replied "You did, on Friday. I'll be back later to pick it up when you've sorted it out, and if you break the locking bolts don't forget to replace them with a new set". Which they did, to be fair. Now they make a point of doing the last turn with the wheelbrace from the car.

 

[brightspark]

every vehicle ive had i allways put a bit of copperslip on the nuts and never had the problem

 

[SirDick Diodenob esquire]

The McGard lock nuts start giving problems after about three years of use , I would take them all off and replace with normal wheel nuts these are on Fords and Volvos . McGard started putting slip rings on from about 2003 onwards so you couldnt even bash on a socket . There is a way that works in most cases , bash the key on with a lump hammer but in the wrong position , the profile of the key will jam into the new position and the repeated impacts help to loosen the stud , this is almost the last resort ( prior to the welding method ) and obviously the key and stud are then for the bin . It was an experienced tyre fitter who got mine off doing this , he reckoned that any Mcgard key can be used for this purpose as long as you dont mind it being destroyed . When I saw this being done its taken away any trust I had in the products security benefits and the makers claimed thousands/millions of different key combinations , one key plus a lump hammer fits all.

 

[Robotstar5]

Took it back Monday morning and asked the fitter if he could undo the wheelnuts, which he couldn't. "Who tightened these up?" he asked, to which I replied "You did, on Friday. I'll be back later to pick it up when you've sorted it out, and if you break the locking bolts don't forget to replace them with a new set". Which they did, to be fair. Now they make a point of doing the last turn with the wheelbrace from the car.

I've noticed the last couple of times at our local "fastfit" tyre place they tighten the nuts with a torque wrench checked against a chart then get it checked by another fitter, maybe they've had too many claims against them?

 

[mike os]

place I use always do them up by hand... I even get a call/text reminding me to check them 2-3 days later

 

[Tin Can]

Machine mart do special sockets with a reverse thread for removing locking wheel nuts

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/locking-wheel-nut-remover-2pc

 

[Porschemaniac]

every vehicle ive had i allways put a bit of copperslip on the nuts and never had the problem

I think that manufacturers recommend not using lubricant of any kind on wheel nuts.

As I understand it, the torque figures relate to 'dry' fixings. Adding lubricant can result in them being over-torqued.

 

[mike os]

& not greasing them means you snap them getting them out........

 

[Porschemaniac]

I think that, pragmatically, we all know the old tip of a bit of Copaslip on the threads is an investment in the future (especially if it's you, who has to remove said bolt some way down the line).

Notwithstanding that, lube will affect the clamping force applied. There are quite a few charts such as this available that show the difference between a lubed and dry fixing can be 20% (ish).

I actually read the other day of a guy, who could not get a Volvo dealer to pay for locking wheel bolts that they had damaged - because he had applied anti-seize to them; effectively leading to an over-torque situation.

We all know that's a tenuous defence on their part (and, personally, I have to agree that on balance a 20% over-torqued bolt that is easy to remove is better than a correctly torqued siezed one). But you can't argue with the physics!