Myxomatosis

I've have a relative with an 03' SRT4 and he asked me to do a brake job for him(rotors and pads). So I did the fronts with little effort got to the back and found the lugs will not come off. After some investigation I realized some a$$hat once worked on the car must have lost one of the wheel's nuts and grabbed some from a bin or whatnot and torqued them on. So they are essentially cross-threaded. We cut one off with a dremel tool (cutting wheel) but it wasn't easy and messed the wheel up a bit. So my question is what the hell does one do. I'll some up what happened and what we did.

Cliffs
-Idiot puts wrong nuts on wheel.
-Tried torching to expand and remove them (propane)
-tried a breaker bar.
-tried one of those easy offs? I'm not sure he bought it, a reverse threaded tool
-tried drilling the studs(wouldn't drill)
-cut one off with a dremel.

One other important thing, the nuts are complete pieces of $hit, the one we ended up cutting off had snapped with the breaker bar, like they were two piece nuts. So after it broke the damn thing was round. So you cant just snap them off, since they break into two pieces.


Anyway anyone have any tips? I'm completely at a loss and we dont want to just keep buying crap that doesn't work.

here's a pic of the wheel type

and what the nuts look like

probmxstyle

You can probably rent a lug nut removal tool from advance auto or auto zone.

Myxomatosis

That was what I called an easy off, it didn't work, just ate up the nut. These are amazing. I keep telling him I should just cut the wheels off the car with a sawzall lol. maybe he bought the wrong size, it's like the metal is just too soft. I've had stuck lugs before on my cars but I'd either snap them or heat them up and break them loose

question can I torch the hell out of these things or will it burn the wheels? I was apprehensive to heat too much for fear of ruining the rims.

teranfon

If you're absolutely sure the lugs have been cross-threaded they won't be much good when the wheels are removed. Heat will help somewhat when removing a cross threaded nut, but to generate enough to be useful it will obviously damage the wheel.

If it were up to me I would drill through the lug nuts and into the studs. Especially if you continue to round off the lug nuts. It will be a time consuming process, but it needs to be done. I wouldn't drill into the rotor at this point, and would only go as far as the face of the rotor. Buy a proper set of bits and use plenty of oil. Start with approximately a one-eighth inch bit and gradually work up to almost the width of the stud.

Good luck.


Terry

phee

iTrader: (5)

cut the wheel

mitch14

i'm sure you can find a DIY about this somewhere, i'll give you some picture references to help




...so the last car you worked on was this one OP?
sawzall looks like fun though

Gfaze

Buy yourself some good quality drill bits and go to work. It's going to be a long day for you.

dallison

trade it,

In the past i had used a one size smaller6 pt socket.

If the lug is 19mm i would use 18mm and hammer it on. This has worked a few times for me. I can't guaranteee this would work on this particulat lug nut.

CocheseUGA

Rent a compressor and an impact wrench? Probably cost around $50 for a half-day.

KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

do what terry said... drill into the lug with a smaller bit and slowly step it up until you get to the size of the lug... get som good quality metal bits, otherwise you are just wasting your time...

Myxomatosis

ok, well, now I feel like I wasted all your time, I talked to him again late lastnight. He got them off, I guess he took it to a shop and they hammered on some sockets and snapped them off with an air wrench.

However I did want to follow this diy, but alas too late. He's my sister-in-laws boyfriend, who's kind of a metrosexual douche, but I'm a nice guy so I was doing him a favor.

Oddly enough, he got the wheels off, but then never asked me to do the brakes on the rears, he's pretty damn lazy with the poor car, at least I got the fronts done, which are the important ones. Sucks when you do a favor and try really hard and realize its not appreciated.