B Feddish <bfeddish@NETREACH.NET> writes: > My mechanic must have set his torque wrench set on "bolt sieze" as it > took forever to get the lug nuts off my rear wheels to put on the > snows. I ended put striping one of the bolts good. Real good. Is that > something I can go get a tool for at Sears hardware or should I just > wait until the shop opens and bring it over this week? The tire shops will often use a pneumatic impact wrench to put the nuts back on. THEN they will take the torque wrench out and go around the car "clicking" it on each nut, which is of course a useless formality at that point. I always back off the nuts and re-torque them properly when I get home if I have any doubt about what the shop did. Use a properly sized six-sided socket for this to reduce the chance of stripping. You can use a bit of anti-sieze or parafin wax on the threads, but be careful to NOT get any on the seat surfaces -- that's what holds your wheels on! As far as getting the nut off, Sears does sell a tool that "bites" into a stripped nut or bolt head -- I've never tried it myself. I'd probably first try to see if the tire shop can get it off, I imagine they have to deal with this fairly often. Allan -- 1991 Vanagon GL |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.