Rounded off lug nut, now what?

Well this ended up getting it off.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

Through the shower of sparks, I can't actually tell what tool is being wielded...

Grinder? Oxy/acetylene torch?

I feel like I should be able to tell by the color and pattern of sparks, but I just haven't got it

looks like a torch to me.

Torch would be my guess. If you do it right you won't even damage the wheel. I can't do it right. I watched an old guy remove a broken water pump bolt out of a SBC with a torch once. He never even touched the threads in the block.

The hand positions look much more torch than grinder, too, now that I think about it...

Torched out. Didn't damage the wheel at all. Luckily Durangos and Dakotas of this generation have 6 lugs, so 5 are still holding on the wheel. I'll replace the stud at some point.

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

Jerry From LA wrote: Take off all the other lugs, then drive in a weaving pattern or a series of deep left and right turns. The side forces should make this lug loosen enough to take off with your hand or a set of Channelocks from the top. Be careful. Do it in a safe area like a parking lot. If the tire is flat or low, it will loosen sooner. I've used this method to loosen wheel locks after the owner lost the key. Good luck.

The engineer in me is vomiting. That cannot be good for the wheel, its seat, or the studs, or the fender, or the lower control arm, or the rotor and maybe caliper...

Fixed that for you. I can't see how that would work. If the nut is still tight, there's no torsion on the nut/stud so I can't see it working it loose.

noddaz wrote: I think that there is a special tool for this. A tapered socket that you can drive on the offending lug and then remove...+ Try Sears of all places...

I may be late on this one, but I enjoy removing rounded off bolts with these. Harbor Freight for some cheap ones.

DrBoost wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

Jerry From LA wrote: Take off all the other lugs, then drive in a weaving pattern or a series of deep left and right turns. The side forces should make this lug loosen enough to take off with your hand or a set of Channelocks from the top. Be careful. Do it in a safe area like a parking lot. If the tire is flat or low, it will loosen sooner. I've used this method to loosen wheel locks after the owner lost the key. Good luck.

The engineer in me is vomiting. That cannot be good for the wheel, its seat, or the studs, or the fender, or the lower control arm, or the rotor and maybe caliper...

Fixed that for you. I can't see how that would work. If the nut is still tight, there's no torsion on the nut/stud so I can't see it working it loose.

It works by deforming the wheel or stretching the stud.

OHSCrifle wrote: Am I correct in assuming the shotgun trick is a joke?

Yes

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

DrBoost wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

Jerry From LA wrote: Take off all the other lugs, then drive in a weaving pattern or a series of deep left and right turns. The side forces should make this lug loosen enough to take off with your hand or a set of Channelocks from the top. Be careful. Do it in a safe area like a parking lot. If the tire is flat or low, it will loosen sooner. I've used this method to loosen wheel locks after the owner lost the key. Good luck.

The engineer in me is vomiting. That cannot be good for the wheel, its seat, or the studs, or the fender, or the lower control arm, or the rotor and maybe caliper...

Fixed that for you. I can't see how that would work. If the nut is still tight, there's no torsion on the nut/stud so I can't see it working it loose.

It works by deforming the wheel or stretching the stud.

Vomit all you want, this method has never failed, has never stretched a stud, damaged a thread or damaged a wheel. It works by working the nut back and forth ever so slightly until it breaks whatever corrosion may be holding it tight and then loosening the nut. Once a nut backs off a sixteenth of a turn, it's lost a lot of its clamping force. You don't use this method to take the nut off the stud. You do it long enough to get it loose enough to remove with your fingers, a Channellock or vise grips. The world will not be knocked off its axis, millions will not die, and big boulders will not fall out of the sky.

Jerry From LA wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

DrBoost wrote:

Kenny_McCormic wrote:

Jerry From LA wrote: Take off all the other lugs, then drive in a weaving pattern or a series of deep left and right turns. The side forces should make this lug loosen enough to take off with your hand or a set of Channelocks from the top. Be careful. Do it in a safe area like a parking lot. If the tire is flat or low, it will loosen sooner. I've used this method to loosen wheel locks after the owner lost the key. Good luck.

The engineer in me is vomiting. That cannot be good for the wheel, its seat, or the studs, or the fender, or the lower control arm, or the rotor and maybe caliper...

Fixed that for you. I can't see how that would work. If the nut is still tight, there's no torsion on the nut/stud so I can't see it working it loose.

It works by deforming the wheel or stretching the stud.

Vomit all you want, this method has never failed, has never stretched a stud, damaged a thread or damaged a wheel. It works by working the nut back and forth ever so slightly until it breaks whatever corrosion may be holding it tight and then loosening the nut. Once a nut backs off a sixteenth of a turn, it's lost a lot of its clamping force. You don't use this method to take the nut off the stud. You do it long enough to get it loose enough to remove with your fingers, a Channellock or vise grips. The world will not be knocked off its axis, millions will not die, and big boulders will not fall out of the sky.

How do you think fasteners work?

Kenny, I've built 17 really fine engines and know how fasteners work. Seriously. If a lug stud has stretched beyond yield, it didn't happen by me wriggling it off, it did so when some overzealous guy with an impact wrench installed the wheel in the first place. In all the times I've done this, it's been because someone lost a wheel lock key or a car sat for awhile and there's some corrosion or someone attacked the nut with the wrong size socket and rounded it. I've never shredded a thread nor loaded one past the point of yield by doing this. I've never elongated a mounting lug. The force applied is well within the limits of the average Grade 5 or 9.8 nut and stud. I'm not spinning donuts with the thing. I'm not trying to take the tire off the car by driving it in circles. I'm just trying to get the thing to the point where I can get it loose with a tool or my hand. That takes maybe ten miles an hour. You guys can stew all you want. I'm going to continue using this method as long as someone asks me to so they don't have to tow their car or incur an extra expense. Ten tries, ten successes. The wheel has always been no problem to remount with a new nut with none of the roughness associated with a wounded stud thread or a stud torqued past yield. No thread chasing no nothing. If the thing came loose because there was stretch, fine. It's never been past yield. If it came loose because God had nothing better to do that day than help me, fine too. I don't care. The wheel is off, a friend is happy, and I can go back to life as I knew it.

I've done that before too, only it was a non running car so I just put a board against the opposite side of the wheel and knocked it a bit with a sledge. they were steel wheels, but it worked, got the lug loose enough to get it off.

I wouldn't ever use a torch on an aluminum wheel, I've had that end badly... not with an aluminum wheel, but with an aluminum piece held in with a steel fastener that I attempted to torch. melted the aluminum (thick cast washer tub) around the fastener.