The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk dang wheel wont come off

i cant get the passenger side wheel on my truck off. 3 of the lug nuts were deteriorated and i couldnt get them off with bolt extractor sockets or anything. it just rounded them off. i tryed just poppin the wheel of with the drum, but the dang shoes are frozen to the drum. so i tryed grinding off the studs, but my grinder is too big and couldnt get in there all the way. and i dont have money to get another grinder. how do i get this wheel off?

Have you tried drilling out the studs? You may have to resort to that to remove the wheel. just make sure that you are dead center on the stud so that if/when you get through the nut, you don't damage the wheel/hub. I have had to do that to remove broken off locking lug nuts, it's not really too bad of a job.

no i havent. thank you. i cant believe i didnt think of that.

If you can get in there with a chisel, maybe you can bust the nuts, and get them off that way.

Try heating the nuts red hot with a troch and split them with a cold chisel. This will spread the nut from the stud loosen the rust problem and let them come off fairly easy and most of the time saving the stud. If that don't workand you have bendix brakes cut the shoe retainers remove outer wheel bering if on the front pull hard and it will come off.

that was the first thing that i wanted to do, but i dont have a torch. i have the wheel bearing and stuff out, and was trying to pull the wheel off, but i didnt think about cutting the shoe retainers. i will try that. if that dont work i will try drilling the studs out. thanks

'49GMC,

Do yo have access to a welder??????
A last resort trick that I have used many times is to weld a length of flat bar stock to the wheel nut/stud ( whatever is easiest to get to ) and then you can lever off the end of this with a big shifting spanner, or in extreme cases, weld a handle to the end of this piece and use a length of pipe to get more leverage.

One of two things will happen......if you manage to get the weld onto the wheel nut, the welding heat and extra leverage should budge it.......or the stud should snap clean off.

If this happens, it is easier to centre punch and drill out the studs.

P.S. A few hefty blows with a FBH and a piece of timber to protect the rim may even shift it!

i'm w/ doc bob on this one
weld the nuts to the studs and break them off w/ an air impact wrench. this was in our antique motorcycle magazine and here
http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/bolt_removal.html

always put a coat of anti-seize on the threads before putting the nut back on

Why not just use a cutting torch and cut the nuts off? Oh but he doesn't have a torch, and he probably doesn't have a welder either.

Use of a cutting torch may lead to damage to the wheel, not a good situation if the wheel needs to be reused.

You all are missing somthing, After the nuts are off, he still will have to pull the hub to replace the studs. If the brakes are hanging up find a way to cure that so you gan get access to the rear of the studs.I hope the problem is on the front so he won't have to pull the axle lke I did.

I might be missing something? Two problems here?

First the lug nuts- A cheap tool called a nut breaker will be found at Harbor Freight. The Nut breaker is a small tool that slips over the lug nut, and tightening the chisel point down on the nut will break it, leaving you with a lug that can be reused. Kind of like a vise, this tool. Better hardware stores may have it on the shelf, or auto parts stores. Let your fingers do the walking.

As for separating the drum from the shoes, you should have a couple of prybars working to open a space up between the drum and the backing plate. The drums have a bit of back and forth/in and out play, due to the mountings, springs and nails. Then using any sharpened screwdriver or chisel, work to "split" the lining material off of the shoe metal. The glue that bonds the lining to the shoe can be convinced it wants to let loose. In all reality, you're buying new shoes anyway. You may only have to split the lining off of one shoe, to get the drum off. Use a BFH to the outside of the drum, all the way around, many times-ish, just to send a message to the drum, you ain't kidding around. And to break up any phantom adhesion.

Usually the drum sports a wear lip out on the edge of the drums, and loosening/tightening the shoes with the star wheel will "shrink" the shoes size and you can pull it. This tight fit or stuck symptom is all about rust and moisture, and wear. Chances are better than average that swelling has occured, and magic adhesion is only apparent. That and the wear lip. Further, the lugs and the drum have a nice close tolerance with each other, and the tiniest rust and corrosion to both parts makes the drum difficult to pull off the six lugs anyway. When you re-assemble, sacrifice one lug nut, and without the drum, chase the threads of each lug with the one lugnut repeatedly.

I just pulled one drum off of the Mousewagon, and the lining unstuck itself with just the two prybars in the gap and the wear lip working for me. One complete piece of lining, intact, will let me carry it to Autoparts store and ensure I have the right ones when I leave.

If the lug nuts are corroded to the point you can't turn them I would not worry about saving the studs. They need to be replaced anyway. You don't want your life and the lives of others threatened to save a couple dollars worth of hardware.

Thou bows down to Oldsub, as a matter of course, but wil relay I only understood him to say he rounded off the lugnuts, which is easy to do with lug wrenches.

If he was using am impact wrench and a socket to round them off, then a nut breaker or a torch is all that will do.

I HAVE used a Dremel and a one inch cutting disc to cut slots in large nuts, just to get my chisel a good place to break them with, but never a whle truck full of em'.

I second the nut breaker. Dad used one on a lug I had rounded once. It's a simple to use, and very effective, tool.

Get some good tools. Don't know how you rounded the nuts with the correct socket. don't worry about the studs, grind off one side of nut and hand chisel it off or bust the nut as described with nut buster. Hit wheel/tire over and over while spraying studs with liquid wrench. Vibration with eventually break loose if it is the stud to wheel sticking. If it is the shoes, All wheels will rotate a little back and forth with a bar as leverage and you also pry outward. It will come off with work. If you don't have tools you have to work. that's how I got my start! if you have to grind into the wheel a little while doing all this that's OK too. It's got to come off.

ok, i have good tools, but not many. i use mainly cornwell tools. i am only 16, and have a job as mechanic at a local body shop and have paid for every penny of my tools. but i dont have a torch. and no big chevy 3600, your right, i dont have a welder either. the reason i rounded them off is that they were all deteriorated before anyway. no socket would fit them. i grinded down the studs and nuts flush with the wheel and beat the crap out of it and it is still stuck. i will probly have to drill out the studs, but i havent got around to it. i am a very busy person. i am in a ton of extra-curricular activities.

oh, and have been using pry bars to try to get the drum and wheel off together, and have it bout half way off, but that took a couple hours, but i need to find a more time-efficient way cause i dont have to muck time

I don't know your exact case but I have found that the hub often fits thru a hole in the drum that is a exact fit. This will rust with age and must be cleaned up and free. A little penetrating oil is usually a help PLUS the Big hammer.

Ask to borrow the nut buster.... Or use the grinder to flatten out one side of a lugnut and split it with a chisel.

in my line of work i have to remove bearing races that have almost zero access to i have to cut them out in pieces. for this job i have a dremel with a flexible shaft and on the end of the shaft i use "reinforced" cut-off wheels. everybody knows how hard bearing races are well these wheels go through them like butter so they would make short work of those lug nuts and studs. the flexible shaft allows access to places a regular grinder can't get to. cutting the brake shoe "hold downs" always works for me and replacement are cheap!