Having booked the day off work to paint my calipers, I started at the obvious start point of taking the wheels off, and thats still where I am at 2 hours later.

My locking wheel nuts are so badly coroded that two of them snapped in half and one bent double whilst I tried to remove them. The fourth one I decided to leave.

Although they were snapped you could still get the bolt pattern to match so I took it to Kwik Fit and asked them if they could just take the locking nuts off and refit the standard ones. So they tried...and they too cannot get them off either.

So now I have to wait till Monday for Honda to chisel them off at a cost of

 

No help to you Hotshot, but a tip for the techy doc has come to mind.

`Periodically remove, WD40 and refit all wheel nuts to the correct torque settings to avoid future seizures`.

I`ll point that out now.

 

Blow lamp? (although I've posted on the muppets section that it didn't help my bike pedals come off last night)

 

CC, thats a good point, but the major problem was that the nuts were corroded, they were 100% rust. Sooner or later they would just have disintegrated. But your right, to prolong the life of them you could make the removal process easier.

Craig, thanks, don't know what they are but blow lamps sound cool. Sounds like it could make a good self defence tool as well

 

Hotshot,

Sorry to hear of your trouble.

Mine are Honda originals, and they have the white caps at the end. They came fitted to the car as standard.

As such, unless your car is a JDM import, I would think that they are the same as mine.

I suspect the previous owner overtightened them because up till now, I've had no problems whatsoever with mine, and my S was born in Sept 99 - this includes 2 tyre changes, various punctures, and fitting and refitting of the side strakes.

I think Colin has a good point regarding the WD40 solution, although I must admit, I don't actually do that myself.

Good Luck

Bharat

 

I had no probs with my nuts and mine were the ones with the white caps too. I suspect what may have happened is that some garage or tyre fitting place has tightened the nuts using a spider spanner, which permits ridiculous leverage when tightening, way beyond the recommended torque.

Bummer!! Hope you get it sorted out!

 

Cheers guys

The car is Aug 99 UK. The purpose of the post wasn't really to depress everyone with my crap day, but hopefully to stop others having the same problem.

On the up side I can now go wash it and enjoy driving around over the weekend instead of waiting for the paint to dry.

Marc

 

Imagine a handheld bunsen burner -

 

Mine have the white caps too, they are the Honda originals. As others have said, it is probably because they have been overtightened by a power wrench. The tyre fitters that I use hand torque the wheel after fitting. It may be worth re-torqing the wheel nuts after any work, to ensure they are fitted correctly. IIRC many companies recommend checking the wheel nuts after 100 miles - their disclaimer to avoid liability for wheels falling off?

Rather than use WD40, I use copper grease on the threads and contact surfaces. I think this is a bit more durable.

 

It seems to me that Honda have changed the locking nuts on the 2002 onwards MYs. The locking nuts on mine match the original except they have a different locking pattern. I have seen the ones on the older models and to be honest they look a little crap!