HELP!!! Snapped wheel nut
 

Hello all,

Bit of a disaster, I just went to take my wheel off and the nut has snapped.. so now I have the hexagonal part in my hand, and the rounded part Stil fully tightened on the thread inside the recessed part of the wheel.
I can't get any grip on it with anything and can't get anything down the side of it.


Does anyone know of a tool that will get it off or slip around it to bite into it so I can turn it off.
So far I've been to ask advice round nearest places to me that are open, a Mercedes and a BMW dealer. Both said their cars have studs that go in And not nuts that go on...so all they could offer was to chisel it off at the expense of damaging the wheel....

Any ideas? Unlucky for me the two crash repair centres are shut

Cheers

You might be able to centre punch the face on opposing sides of the remnant of the nut and then drill into it with a small bit at each side before using a narrow cold chisel to split it so it comes off.

Tim

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/pr...-expansion-set

Dave

so am i right in thinking the wheel can still come off if you have the hex part in your hand if you undo the rest of the nuts?????

if so take wheel of to get to the stud part

or am i thinking wrong??

westallc, the way I read it is that the nut has broken and half of it is still holding the wheel on. I thought there was a special tool like a tapered spline that was hammered over the nut remnants to get a grip but it may just be my imagination.....

Shaun

Snapped wheel nut
 

Hi,
I had the exact same thing happen to me!
What I did:
Find a smaller <17mm socket, (it's brutal), smash it over the top of the snapped nut with a big mallet!
Then undo as normal, takes some courage but I did it as said and it worked,
good luck fella.....

I tried to attach a photo but I dunno how from my phone...
WHat midlife said is correct, the hexagonal part has broken away leaving just the round bottom section on the stud.
I can't get anything down the sides of It to grip it.
I just popped round to a place near me that repairs old bill cars. THey had a tool that cuts into the sides of the metal (say if you've rounded off a nut or lost your locking nut) but the width of the actuall socket were too wide to slide around the gap between wheel and nut.
I wouldn't be in so much of a hurry but my tyres need changing and the wheels stuck on.

Currently charging up my drill, I've found some old wheel nuts so I'm gonna drill down the remains of the nut As close to the stud as possible and hope I can lever it off.

Typical a 5 min job developed into a disaster

Ha ha sarge, I got angry enough to try that one with no luck. I even hit it with 'I don't care if I smash the **** out of the wheel right now' hulk anger....and I've got expensive speedline wheels but that still never stopped me

doing this from my phone so I hope it works.. see how its purely the hex part that's snapped and left a super tight rounded part behind

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._3540149_n.jpg

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._6132041_n.jpg

if there is enough thread left on it the AA / RAC patrolmen have a lefthand threaded socket for taking off locking wheel nuts, maybe this could help if you can find an AA or RAC patrolman. Sealey make one in 21 and 25mm for around £10. Hope this helps

Hi subby, yeah I think that's the one The old bill repairs place had , But they couldn't fit the actual rim of the socket between the gap with it. And the one that fit inside wouldn't fit over the remains of the nut.

Got the drill on charge, hopefully this'll get the ******* off.

Ok this happened to me, and as suggested above try the following. Lets assume that you normally need a 20mm socket to undo the nut, so select a 19mm out of the range an put an extention piece on it so you can get a firm grip, then get a trust heavy hammer and bray the socket on, it might seem shocking at the time, but if you persevere you should be fine, if the socket fails, then select a 18mm and repeat until you get a good enough grip to undo the socket.

There are other options, but for me this above was they way forward

Good luck
Rob

I had this on my bug a little while ago and but I had four snapped on one wheel and one on an other. It also looks like you have the same nuts as what I did, think they are from scoobyworld.

The wheel with four took me, m444gy and P1daveyboy five hours and 12 drill buts to get off and it also resulted in me needing a new wheel :eek:

The wheel with one snapped was alot easier, m444gy drill around the nut near to the stud and then from behind the wheel he used a breaking bar, 3rd scaffold pole and a but if brute force to lever of the wheel with all the other bolts removed it just popped off. A quick whack with a club hammer to straighten the stud the wheel was refitted.

I did try the smaller nut method but it didn't work for me.

Hope that helps you mate and good luck.

Possible fix
 

drill a single central hole as large as possible and deep into the stub, make sure you have a series of top quality drill bits or they will snap.

get a top quality allen key that is just too big for the hole and grind off the short end to leave a hex shaft

hammer the key in the hole as far as possible, tidy up the hammered end and slot it in a suitably powerful hammer drill (with adjustable torque), set to reverse.

Start with midrange torque and increase as required.

Right boys I've just given up.
Cheers for all your suggestions. I tried the hammering on of a smaller socket again with a club hammer and a massive amount of pounding. It managed to get a tiny bit of grip but not enough to get some good leverage to turn the nut off.

I then tried a smaller socket, managed to not only get it on but get it stuck on over the top of the remains. It kind of squashed the nut down. Bit too so there's now less to get hold of.

So, I decided to get drastic and start drilling. I hoped that by drilling one side it would of weakened it enough to turn off or at least open and break off. The tip of The part that's left is bevelled though so its keeping it tight in place. I reckon drilling all the way around would do the trick in the end, but it took me an hour and a bit, 3 sizes of drill bit and two of them gave up the goose and broke.

I think the best way is gonna be to drill down the centre of The stud, get that off and replace the stud on the hub. Anyone changed a stud on theirs before? Easy task? If I remember you just pop them out from the rear...?
I think I'm gonna have to hand it over to the crash repairs boys, at least they'll have all the tools.

Here's a pic of an hours worth of drilling swearing and chiseling. And its Stil welded tight

http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...2_484054_n.jpg

And @Martin.... indeed they are the scoobyworld ones. They are only aluminum.. but also it doesn't help that tyre fitters and anyone with air tools murders them when they do them up. Been on there 3 years with no problem. Won't be buying them again though

Not sure I'd like to drill through the wheel stud as they are splined in place, I'd concentrate on the nut and destroy it along with the top of the stud and then replace the stud

https://www.scoobynet.com/wheels-tyr...heel-stud.html

Shaun

As you have probably already mentioned,what about finding out the gauge of the stud and getting increments of drill bits to bore out the stud?

So if the Stud/thread is 12mm, then get a centre punch in the middle, then drill right through (at least to the surface of the hub) with a 3mm bit making sure you are as striaght as possible as this will be key later, then once done insert a 5mm bit through and repeat until you get to around 11mm - 13mm by which point im sure (if the pilot hole was straight) the bolt will just fall off, then at least you can jack the car up and remove the rest of the nuts and the wheel should just come away, then you can at least deal with the knackered stud. It all looks good in text, just hope it works for you.

HTH

Rob

That's the thing I haven't really the tools to do it. And drilling the allow nut was hard enough, drilling that stud would be a killer. I think its gonna be one for the garage. Even drilling all around the nut would be easier for them. I killed all my bits.
On the plus side I'm glad I couldn't log into paypal last nite, as I nearly blew 200 on a roll bar and drop links. Gonna be glad I still have that 200!

As rob just said, it seems so easy til you start having a go. Even when I look at the photos I've taken it looks easy! Gonna have another go at drilling it tomorrow. All the way around with my last drill bit.

Looks like you have a decent hole there, a tapered punch and a good whack might open the nut enough to get off. I have that kind of stuff to deal with every day at work and usually find a hole each side and a tapered punch or narrow chisel does the trick. You might find drilling low speed with plenty of lubricant will cut faster as the drill tips get knackered easily on the high speeds.

A lot of tyre fitting places have experience and can help if you ask nicely. Neighbour rounded off one of her nuts (!) and the local garage removed it for free with no damage.

A burr on a high speed drill would do it, but it'd take a while

Well lads, a day and a half later I'm Stil no better off.

I tried hammering on a smaller socket, with success... but each time I got a grip it just rounded it off even further with each turn. I started with a 21mm and got right down to about a 13. So, out came the oxyacetylene torch... tried to soften it up to maybe whack a socket over better. Stil no luck. Now its just down to The chisel, some drills, some sweat some tears and some cans of Stella for the remainder of my days off work.


http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._4746908_n.jpg

Ah man i've been there, and finally got mine off. Tried driling stud out, didn't work drill didn't touch it.

In the end my mate got a blow torch on it, to heat it up try loosen it, didn't seem to work. Messed up my alloy aswell.

Ended up using a air chisle, this broke the rest of the nut off finally but damaged the alloy quite abit, need a good refurb now.

I was gutted, my oz alloy looked a mess.

Ive been at it for hours... seem to have gotten nowhere, taken a hell of a lot of paint off the wheel in the process. I'm knackered. My neighbour gave a mate a call of whom has some heavy drills... hopefully one of those will do the trick.
I'm hoping I can at least get away with only having to replace a stud. Don't really want to end up chopping the wheel beyond a refurb... speedline in this size sold singly are 229 not including vat :-(

On a side note, I saw in this months banzai page 12 some good looking steel nuts made by rota... anyone seen these anywhere? They don't say where you can buy them and even rotas own site didn't have them

Give it to Lewis Hamilton, he'll be able to remove it whilst driving.

Alternatively, are you able to get at the back of the stud? If so you maybe able to grind the head of the stud off. You could then drill the stud out from the rear.

They are what I have got on my car now, pm M444GY on here and he can sort you some out at a decent price. I will NEVER use alloy nuts again!!

Took me and my mate bout 2 hours of blow torch and air chisle, would not recommend blow torch though, as it don't look like you will be able to unscrew then remaining nut.