Unable to remove locking wheel nut coz garage did up to tight

MX5huggy

Don't wont to worry the OP but here is one saga of removing an over tightened wheel http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=3490

Some great stories of garage workmanship on this forum.

anewman

MX5huggy wrote: »

http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=3490

Oh dear I'd be in tears if that was my wheel.

trollied

Cheers boss, thats brilliant. Bring on the new alloy wheel. I`ll let you know what happens in the end



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dannymccann

MX5huggy wrote: »

Don't wont to worry the OP but here is one saga of removing an over tightened wheel http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=3490

Some great stories of garage workmanship on this forum.

:eek: Effort! Must admit I got my wheel nuts off my Astra ok and the place I go for tyres doesnt seem to have an airgun so the blokes use normal hand tools to remove and tighten wheel nuts. Still took me the best part of 15 minutes to get one of them loose though :rotfl:

Wig

MX5huggy wrote: »

Don't wont to worry the OP but here is one saga of removing an over tightened wheel http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=3490

Some great stories of garage workmanship on this forum.

Are these bolts unusually shaped? They appear to snap and leave a length of shaft remaining before the bottom of the 'wheelbolt wells' and there appears to be a 'shoulder' half way along the shaft that holds the wheels on, if there was no shoulder the wheel would be loose i.e. the design would make no sense.

I don't see why he cared the other 3 were going to snap, they would have to be snapped eventually anyway.

Surely this being the case the best course of action would be to snap/remove all 5 bolts BEFORE taking such action against the wheel itself. then individually melt each shaft/shoulder and remove the wheel - which is what he ended up doing, But he chose to destroy the wheel before trying to remove the wheel over the bolts. I know what he said about drilling them, and I agree it would be hard, but I'd try that before melting them.....alternatively he could have melted them down to the shoulder and then drilled the shoulders off. Really don't see the point in destroying the wheel as his first course of action before trying to remove the wheel over the bolts!

Answering my own question,
I went looking for Mercedes wheel bolts and found this pic in post #10 of this thread
http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/wheels-tyres/82752-help-wheel-bolts-snapped.html
This explains their crappy design....Post #17 explains how he got it removed -Good Job, Hats off to him etc.

Read posts #25 & 26, they sensibly replaced them with shorter standard wheel bolts, to avoid a repeat of this drama.

Need to add this to the thread on discussion time "bad design" it's obvious the bolt will snap at some point along the first section of the shaft leaving a very difficult extraction to do. Why didn't MB just use shorter bolts, or bolts with longer heads - top left in the pic below?