Pedro'74

Hi All,

After long procrastination, today I was finally ready remove the snow tires of my daily driver and install all-season tires, and the topic title happened.... :mad It seems that the gorilla at the tire shop tightened the damn thing way too much... When it finally broke loose, it was "looser than it should be", if you know what I mean... That thing is "delicate" and is supposed to be torqued at only 44 ft-lb, and the jackass thought it would be safer to set his impact gun to max power and zap it up.... GRRRRR!!!!! :cuss

Anyway, what can I do??? Seems that I have to remove the wheel to get to the stud, but I can't remove the wheel if I can't remove that lug nut. :confused: I'm the process of putting the Vette back together, and the last thing I needed was a project on my DD.

Also, how unsafe it is to drive with one loose lug nut (one out of 4)?

Thanks in advance!

:cheers:
-Pedro

comp

:shocked: not safe

Pedro'74

C'mon, comp, it can't be that unsafe.... One nut should be enough to hold the wheel, and the others are there as spares and to balance the weight... ;)

:cheers:
-Bubba

P.S. still have no idea what to do. I'll start by trying to buy the damn stud and lug nut. Hope someone can give some ideas... Thanks!

Older Than Dirt

Are you saying the stud and lug nut spins inside the hub, the knurl is stripped out inside the hub? If that's the case I would drive the vehicle back to the establishment and show the manager. No telling what kind of stress that moron put on all the studs. I would make them fix it and recheck my hubs and studs. And I don't think I would be nice about it either. :mad There is no excuse for what happened. They are responsible.

Sharky Guam

I agree..take it back and let them fix it. Shops have insurance for things like that. And to most shops, especially tire shops, wheel stud problems are a common thing. If they are reputable, they will fix it without any hassles. And to dispell the myth, normal driving with a loose stud is not that big a deal. The safety factor built in to the design allows for things like that. It would be wise to get it fixed soon. But having the car towed because of a loose wheel stud is ridiculous.

Pedro'74

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Yea, that's exactly what happened. All the nuts were pretty tight; three came out with a lot of brute force, but the fourth one started spinning. Not sure how to handle this; I guess the nut and stud have to be cut, or literally destroyed... I'm afraid if I take the car to the tire shop they would simply say that I screwed things up. After so many months, how can they be sure that no one messed with the wheels and overtightened the nuts? And frankly, I think I would want those punks away from my cars... Every time one of my cars is in the hand of "professionals" something wrong happens...

If this is something I can handle, then I'll try to do it on my own---even though I'm always nervous to mess with the DD, since I need her for daily commute. I'm never scared to go way over my head on the Vette, since I got time to fix my own screw-ups, but on the DD I'd have to start and finish the job on the same day somehow, and that is kinda nerve wrecking for a novice like me...

Thanks again guys,

:cheers:
-Pedro

henderjl

The repair depends on what type of car it is and front or rear wheel. You are going to have to remove the hub, spindle, knuckle, or axle to get to the back side. Then the stud can be held from the front and ground or drilled out from the back. This would be tough to do at home in one day because it will be difficult to predict what tools you might need. If you don't want to take it back to the tire place, take it to a good shop. You want one where they say "No problem, we do this all the time", not one where they say "Yeah, I guess we can fix it".

WashingtonRacer

The tire shop should take care of it for you. They cannot assume you must have tampered with it. If they do, then you just hope they are with the BBB, and report them.
Anyways, from the sounds of it. My first thought would be to pull out the dremel tool and put a strong cut off wheel on it and start slicing the lugnut off till you can basically pull peices of the nut off. Then the tire should come right off.

Pedro'74

Thanks for the advice, guys.

I'll have to decide whether I'll take her back to the stupid shop, or if I'll have the guts to face this mission on my own. Either way, this will have to wait till Tuesday, and I hope it's OK to drive her in the meantime (I'm talking about low speed "mild" commute).

I think destroying the nut with a dremel tool is feasible. Isn't there also a tool designed specially for this purpose---to break nuts? I need to "study" what will happen afterwards. If it's a matter of removing the caliper and getting the rotor and hub out, then it shouldn't be too difficult. BTW, the car is a '96 Geo Metro, and we're talking about a front wheel stud.

Thanks again,

:cheers:
-Pedro


[Modified by Pedro'74, 10:45 PM 5/29/2004]