VanJesin

Firstly Hello to everyone on the forum, I've been reading here for a couple of weeks but now its time to post. The story is I've just bought my first Impreza, its a '99 Sti 5, just imported 3 weeks ago.
All is well with the car, in fact its amazing (you all know this ), the performance, how the car feels etc all sweet but it surprised me with its excellent manners around town at low speed and how comfortable it is over a long journey .

The only problem I have is with the tyres, they are Bridgestone Potenza Re 01-R. I dont know much about these, I've seen a couple of mentions of them on American Subaru forums. Anyway they are a blatent dry weather tyre (The tread reminds me of old Yoko A520s) and **** poor in the Scottish summertime as I found out when I hit boost in third on a straight road . I rate Goodyear Eagle F1 like alot of other folk and have had several sets of them on 5 cars over the last 7 years (amongst many others) so I ordered a set then went to check I had the key for the Mcgard locking nuts. And guess what? No key
This didnt worry me too much though, I've dealt with this kind of thing before and have no fear and I do have access to pretty much all garage equipment so I went to order a new set of locking nuts and there my problems began.............

The problem is I have black wheel nuts on gold Oz Orodrive WRC-1s and now apparently I can only get silver locking nuts. This is not on. I'm not having one silver nut on with 4 black ones and I'm not buying all new in silver because 1. screw buying 20 nuts and 2. silver ones suck, black ones rock.

So to sum up, no shops I have spoke to can get black nuts, either from mcgard or anyone else, Prodrive could not help and recommended I call Subaru who could not help and recommended I call the guy who Imported it who didnt have a clue about any of it and recommeded I call Subaru or a motor factors. I have not been able to get through to Mcgard on the phone yet but I will keep on trying.

My latest idea is to send Mcgard a mould/cast of the wheel nut pattern but I dont know how helpful the are as I obviously dont have the code for a replacement.

Failing that I dont know

Does anybody know where I can obtain black locking nuts or are Mcgard likely to help? Any info greatly appriciated as this is stopping me getting my new rubber on and getting a good SAFE drive in almost constantly wet Scotland

Cheers in advance

Jason

phil_1773

why not paint the nut mat black or something i painted my nuts thay went rusty i can see some jokes about this hahaha

monkeysan

my subaru lock nuts have a small plastic protective cap which i paided blue to match the rest of my wheel-nuts

VanJesin

I have had the plastic caps on an Audi or a Golf. I was thinking of these as a last resort.

Painting them black was a thought but I cant see the finish being hard enough to cope and I'm not up for anything looking scabby. Maybe there is a really hard curing paint I cant think of.

Cheers for the replies.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

The McGuards are steel, yes?

What, if any, finish is on them at the moment?

The reason I ask is that if they are just bright steel ie: no finish, there are TWO ways of getting a good black finish.

Firstly, heat the nut to red heat and quench it in OIL. You'll need a pretty powerful heat gun to get it hot enough. Oxy-propane would do.

Secondly, have a look HERE: C+L Finescale

That's a site for modellers, but the stuf WORKS and will work on ANY clean steel.

Alcazar

SPEN555

When I lost my key I made clay molds of the nut and took photos. McGard sent me a key which then fit the nuts.