Locking wheel nut - the final straw - cuting the wheel off

[deathrowrecords]

Currenly on my car I have and an alloy wheel locking nut that has been air gunned up to tight or has been cross threaded. I have tried all the usual methods to get this removed and have been through 3 locking wheel nut keys. We have tried drilling it, using expensive removal kits to no joy, the thing is just stuck solid.

The final straw is now to remove the other 4 bolts and take an angle grinder to the wheel and leave me with just the bolt stuck out and then hopefully I can remove it while having more access to it.

Anyone think this is a good or bad idea?????????

I really am at a loss of what else to try next

I have a replacment wheel and tyre ready to go on no problem

[Pumaracing]

It's a very bad idea. With a decent high powered MIG or stick welder you should be able to weld a big nut to the locking thingy and then get it off with a socket. I did the same for a mate last year when his key broke.

Before you try to undo it give it do the other three nuts up as tight as possible to take the load off it and give it a few good belts with a hammer and drift to shock it loose. Then weld the nut on and see how you go.

[Steve_D]

I second Puma on the welding of a big nut even if it means you have to also weld onto the stud. With a big heave ho you can shear the stud.

More important....do not use an angle grinder on an ali wheel. The cutting disc will clog with the ali and explode. Let me say that again.....very very dangerous.

Steve

[stevieturbo]

Did you use a drill bit suitable for the task in hand ? or just a regular HSS ?

[Rollcage]

It is not always possible to get a welder in to the recess.....

If possible, have you thought about dismantling the suspension to get the hub off and get the studs out that way?

[Mr POD]

Tighten up the other wheel nuts really tight which will release the tension on the offending one then use a hammer and centre punch (or pointed hardened drift) to spin it. Or get a drill and centre punch the centre and starting will a 10 mm drill work up until the stud is removed. Once the wheel is off you'll need a stud extractor.

[stevieturbo]

Remove as many of the wheel nuts as possible....then drive the car.


Its bound to break the last one eventually lol

[hman]

I once attempted to cut off an alloy with a grinder, the disc exploded as detailed by another poster.

So i got my jigsaw, and a can of wd40 and cut through the spokes by cooling the blade with a squirt every so often.

its really messy and I dont reccomend it.


The old way of removing a locking nut was to hammer a socket over the locking nut and then crank it off with a wrecking bar attached to the socket.

This would be my last resort before welding stuff to the stuck nut.

[Pumaracing]

You certainly don't want to hammer a socket on if the locking bolt is the type with a spinning rim to defeat that approach. The one I fixed for a mate I refer to above, by the time I was asked to look at it he'd had a go and failed, an RAC man had tried and failed but left the thing with a socket hammmered on it which was just spinning uselessly with the rim and completely filling the hole in the alloy wheel. No way to grip the bloody socket to get it off and of course with the socket there no way to get in and weld anything to the bolt behind that. I came close to admitting defeat and suggesting cutting the wheel off but in the end I managed to weld a breaker bar to the socket and lever that off then grind the spinning rim away and finally hammer another smaller socket onto the remains and it came straight out. Took bloody hours though. It would have been a five minute job if incompetent halfwits hadn't bksed it first.

BTW, no point trying to drill these things. They're through hardened and even a carbide bit will struggle with them. I broke a carbide drill and a carbide cutting burr trying to get this one off before I sorted it with the welder.

If you have a dremel or similar you can grind the spinning rim off with a small stone and then a socket hammered on should do the trick.

[ymwoods]

I once had a DEALER APPROVED (apparently alloy) locking nut which was fitted cross threaded then to top it off had rusted so bad that as soon as any pressure was put on with the key it just disintagrated, the easiest way was to weld a nut onto it and find the biggest bar we could, litrally two people jumping on the end of this bar and eventually it shifted. Took my thread with it though

[Trooper2]

They make special spiral impact sockets for removing locking lug nuts when they are damaged or the 'key' is lost, everytime I've had to use one it has worked very well and it's alot easier than the other ideas I've read on this thread.

http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=&t...

So put a few drops of oil in your 1/2" impact wrench and getter done.

[deathrowrecords]

All the below methods have been tried already


Hammering socket over

Drilling done by friends at a machine shop

£200 removal kit

Welding MIG and ARC, recess far too small to penetrate

reverse threaded socket kits

Air chisel

there is prob more but i forget

I am now left with a very smashed up and damaged nut

[stevesingo]

Portable spark eroder. We have a company come in to my work place from time to time that have removed broken taps from titanium (very easy to do). Have a look on the web. Don't know what they charge, but it will save the wheel.

Steve

[Simon Says]

deathrowrecords said:

All the below methods have been tried already


Hammering socket over

Drilling done by friends at a machine shop

£200 removal kit

Welding MIG and ARC, recess far too small to penetrate

reverse threaded socket kits

Air chisel

there is prob more but i forget

I am now left with a very smashed up and damaged nut

What car/make model is it? and front or rear? may be easier just to release the hub flange through the wheel centre and get it on the bench to deal with it

[stevieturbo]

What drill bits did they use ??

IMO, it shouldnt be that hard to drill with the correct bit.

[tribbles]

I'm surprised there isn't enough recess to get a weld on it - when I've done it with sheared off bolt heads, I've just used the welder by itself to extend the bolt, and then weld a nut onto it.

When I've done my wheel nuts, though, I welded a bolt onto the nut, rather than another nut - much easier, but you DO need to let it cool down before trying.

Just thinking about it, is the nut an open nut, or a closed one (i.e. does any of the bolt protrude above the top of the nut)? An open one would be more complicated, but a closed one should be very easy to make longer to make it easier to weld on a new nut/bolt.

[williamp]

Dave82506 said:

So where do you go from there??

[mygoldfishbowl]

Never weld wheels/wheel nuts/hubs while tyres are fitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBUVzgCHHuA

[stevieturbo]

Dave82506 said:

Just make sure it's a metal cutting disc.

Strictly speaking, the correct disc for use with aluminium is actually a stone disc due to it's self cleaning properties.

Calling them metal and stone is incorrect. And that's from a guy who teaches H&S regarding abrasive wheels ( not me )

[Mr2Mike]

Dave82506 said:

I was left with one last DIY option.

Looks to me like there was more than enough access to get a welder to the top of the locking nut.