I wanted to bleed the brakes on my S yesterday. So I jacked the car up. Put it on 4 jack stands and started removing the wheels. I got three wheels off with no problem, but the 4th wheel decided to be stubborn. The locking lug cracked and broke. I continued to try to get it off, but it broke even more.

I called for some help. A friend of mine is a mechanic by trade. He offered some suggestions. I tried his ideas, but it didn't work, so he ended up coming over. We tried impact tools, punding 12pt sockets of various sizes over the remnents of the lug, but just couldn't get a good bite.

donnieb is an S2000 owner who works at a tire store, so I called him. He was working yesterday. Since the car was already up and had three wheels off, I drove down to borrow some tools from his shop. Speciality tools to help remove broken or locking lugs. I took them home and tried them, still didn't work.

donnieb ended up coming over to my house after work and was able to finially get the lug off!

He tried driving a socket over the remnent too, but he couldn't make that work either. He ended up using a punch to try and turn the remnent, and it worked!

Here are pictures of the remnent:






These were Honda locking lugs. The key is in fairly bad shape too, so I went back to stock lugs on all 4 corners. I will be shopping for new locking lugs in the near future.

Morale of the story:

1. Locking lug nuts can prevent someone from quickly removing your wheels. I spent about 5-6 hours working on this thing.

2. Always, ALWAYS be carefull removing lug nuts. Make sure your tools are lined up straight and do NOT slip off when working with the lugs.

 

D'uh oh! (Best Homer Simpson voice)
Sorry to hear about your bad luck...sounds similar to some stories about simple car maintenance that I have! (First time I saw the screw-in piston, jack problems, oil-filter problems...) Yet I still keep trying! I don't make the same mistakes, but seem to find new ones!

-Justin

 

This is why I hate using lock nuts. They have fewer points for a key to lock on and turn so they can strip so easily.

 

a punch was what I was thinking at first. I took a mechanical technology class at the University of Louisiana and I remember reading about using punches for that(stuck nuts and bolts). I'm glad you finally got it man.
I don't use wheel locks because of their potential to throw off the wheels' balance.

 

[QUOTE=ruexp67,May 1 2005, 09:12 AM]

Morale of the story:

1.

 

over torqued them when you put them on??

 

I used a torque wrench the last time I put them on. It's possible my torque wrench is out of spec.

 

OWN3D!

 

That was helpful, thanks four your input

 

That looks terrible. Last year I lost my key and had to go through the same routine. Are you going with new wheel locks or just going to stick with the standard lugs?