EEVEE

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Sooooooo how would i go about taking this wheel off? At this point i do not care if i break the wheel off i am getting another one, but there were many attempts to break, torch and grind these 2 lug nuts out to no avail and i am running out of options. My next plan was to just hook up a truck with a rope tied to the wheel and just yank it right out of there but i want some other input on other ways to go about this. the shop i was gonna take it to was gonna charge me 300 dollars to take it off and i just cannot spend that right now and this was all suppose to be a simple brake job but obviously this went south with stripped out nuts and those lug nut removers didnt work at all for this. And like i said i dont care if the rim breaks at this point i just need it off and i can work from there air chiseling it away and put new studs and nuts on there with a new rim. I am on limited funds as i changed these to go find a job this week so any help would be appreciated and hopefully there are other less blunt ways to take it off as i been fighting with this for the whole week. Also what type of studs and nuts are these? they said they had the torch on it for an hour and they still wouldnt give at all and it was glowing like the sun. And again any help would be appreciated. oh and also in one of the attempts we had to use 4wd and now i cant get it out how would i get it into 2wd again?

XJlimitedx99

Woah, yikes. At this point those will have to be cut off with an oxy-acetylene torch. You'll most likely have to have a shop do it at this point. $300 sounds awfully steep though.

I've seen this once before. I have a lug nut that I broke in half on my trophy shelf. It broke into two pieces between the threaded section and the hex section.

Do not try to rip the wheel off with another truck. I promise those lug studs are stronger than the force of dragging your Jeep sideways/causing other damage.

To get it back into 2wd you can try to push it back into 2wd and drive backwards for a few feet. This will unload the drivetrain to help it slip back in. If you still cant get it you can crawl under the Jeep and manually move the linkage on the transfer case.

Situations like this are super frustrating. You think you're doing what you need to do to take care of the Jeep by doing the brakes and instead end up with this mess. Trust me when I saw we all know the feeling. You'll figure it out and get everything squared away.

texastaz38

Going to throw this out there. It looks like you have applied ample heat to the stud to cause it to soften the metal some. If you can identify the wheel stud itself, center punch the stud as close to center as possible. Then with a small bit, maybe 3/16', drill the stud to a depth that is deeper than the lug nut. Then progressively increase the size of bits you continue to drill with until you can work or break the stud and lug off together. Slow and steady will win the race. Use plenty of cutting oil and patience. Best of Luck. Happy Jeepin'

XJRed96

Yea you are drilling or O2A torching at this point If you can drill and expand as mentioned then once you get far enough in some hard swings with a sledge hammer should cause the studs to snap. The studs are half inch( or if they are metric they should be 12mm) so if you can expand up to that or close enough that should be adequate
and fun fact if you can you should replace all your lug nuts with One pc style lugs. the lug nuts with the chrome cap like to swell up under the cap causing either the cap to separate or to swell, either way causing the nut itself to round off when a proper socket is not used. If you can get the cap off then the remaining lug nut is an 18mm. I cant tell you how many of those Chrysler lug nuts come into my shop rounded off because other shops will either not replace the lug or grab a different socket. Add a rounded off nut to a cross threaded, over tightened, stretched out lug and stud then you are in for a headache. Good luck amigo, I've been there it sucks, but it'll be over eventually.

EEVEE

Ok thanks, yeah i was told to drill them out at this point as well but i WAS on a time constraint this week but now that it is over maybe i can drill them out, so 12 mm is the biggest they are? Ok i think i can work my way up to that. and yeah we used an oxy acetylene torch on them thats how it ended up like it did i would assume there is a drill bit for them? please excuse my lack of tool knowledge as this is the first time this ever happened to me and i have a limited amount of tools so i appreciate the help once more and maybe will take a trip to home depot or lowes. and yep thats exactly what happened with these as i went to take them off with a breaker bar with exact fit with no slack in the socket and even with penetrating oil, i also heard of another kind of oil i forgot the name but it works well too but back to the subject. i tried with a breaker bar and it went to the ground and im like finally! come to find out i completely rounded off the stupid nut and had the sheet metal welded basically in the socket and took me ages to get out. so i attempted the other one and the same exact thing happened and yep i knew it was gonna be a huge headache in the week but i now learned a few things

1. use air tools theyre your friend
2. put grease/ anti seize on your studs
3. dont rush and take your time or else itll make it worse

now it is a costly mistake for me but you live and learn or so it seems. and yep thats what i figured the brakes on it are toast anyways as the previous owner wore them down and drove like that for a year and then changed them so to avoid making it worse i wanted to change them as he put the cheap pads on and omg they fade so badly. said person put the cheapest online pads on there and the petal sank to the floor basically as they heated up so quickly. funny thing is the drivers side is done already and with just that pad alone it never faded out on me as i drove places to try to get the stupid wheel off. but i am rambling i will try the drill bits next but im not sure i have a powerful enough drill for it but wont hurt to try as i took spot welds out with it as i already repaired the floor pans (A PITA). but thank you for the input and quite quick too lol wasnt expecting that. yes the repair shops around here love to gouge you of your cash there is no honest people around here and youre lucky if you find one. i do know one guy and he helped ALOT as he tried to weld a nut onto that one before it was torched but that did not work as its a zinc type nut he said so it twisted off. *sighs* never bringing it to goodyear again i took it there to get another wheel weight as this stupid kid thought it was awesome to snap my weight off and i noticed right away as im like no i have death wobble at 55 i cant be wobbling at 30 mph then i go back and see his kid has my weight and is sliding it down the driveway so they took the wheel off there put another one on and just rattled it on there to the point of overkill lol and am left with this now i only take my wheels off and use a torque wrench at 80 pounds with a grease now i loosened all my other ones WITH a gun and made life so much easier and done all the proper stuff. again thank you next step is drill bit i shoulda said no and brought it home and tried this instead but i was so stressed today i said just do it and now i have this mess.

DFlintstone

Agreed, try backing up to get out of 4 WD. Agreed, you could drill it. Will any crack free? Any chance of spraying it from the inside? Can't hurt. Btw here we have a "mobile welder" guy who doesn't need to charge so much with no "professional" shop to fund. Also equipment shops that work on dozers and such have mobile welders. Might be worth a call.

EEVEE

Sadly at this point i am very low on cash and cannot hire someone to do anything to it that is why im gonna just drill them out it is only those 2 that wont budge at all and now are in this shape so im just gonna take my time and drill them. and spray it from the inside? what do you mean? oh also before i forget what type of lug nuts do you guys prefer to use instead of these plated ones? i want a solid one that wont break the plating off but still look like the original ones i dont like the open ended ones im ocd about that lol they all have to match any link, name or brands will help, im gonna replace all of them once i get enough money to do so as i am missing so much lug nuts and studs. i need 9 lug nuts and 6 studs now or if i can find a deal replace all nuts and studs as these ones are crusty and cant finger screw them. i wish i could just stick a nut splitter on them and be done and over with but no way to get it in there so first we tried to use an air chisel and tried splitting it but that didnt work at all which i was hoping would work but nope.

dzywicki

Wow. I've been in some hairy problems, but nothing quite like this one. If all else fails, I have yet to see an angle grinder be stopped from cutting through anything metal. I would guess some angled cuts into the wheel/stud would solve that problem. I bought a $15 angle grinder from harbor freight and it has served me well so far. Might also be able to use it right down the middle of the stud.

LACK

Oh my...

LiamLikeNeeson

I work at a wheel and tire shop and when we encounter this it's normally because a lug was rusted on (although unlikely because I'm in SoCal) or improperly torqued lugs. Drilling it out is probably your best bet if you want to keep it simple, or you can use a power saw and cut as much of the surrounding wheel off so you can get an angle on the screw itself and cut right through the lug. But that is a bit much and should be your plan Z Subsection 100 because that will mean you'll need to replace the axle hub.

EEVEE

didnt think about an angle grinder i may use that as a last resort if im careful enough. and im trying to mimimalize the damage so i dont destroy the hub but if all else fails the i have no choice, ugh those people have no chill with the impact wrenches thats what happened. thank you all for the input its much appreciated as i have never really done this at all and plan not to ever do it again. i will try the drill this week and return with results on how i got it off incase this happens to someone else and maybe include pictures of the aftermath.

Rogue4x4

They obviously didn't know what they were doing if they used an oxy/acetylene torch on that for over an hour...

I deal with stuff way worse than that on a daily basis, so I'll give you the best advice I can here...

Check the setup they're using. Make sure both tanks have sufficient gas in them, if it's close to being low, get a refill.

Set up the output flow on the oxy side to 20-25, and the output on the acetylene around 7-10.

Next make sure you use the proper torch ends, it should look like this:



Open the fuel **** (acetylene) and strike a flame. Turn it up until the black soot is no longer/barely visible, then slowly turn on the oxy, and adjust until you get a neutral flame...then put the flame to what you want to cut, and heat up until glowing red, should only take 30 seconds or so. Then push the lever on the torch to kick the oxygen into full gear. Torch until you see the lugnut melt away, and get as much of the stud itself, down flush to the hole on the rim. Repeat for the second offending nut/stud.

Make sure you leave at least one good lugnut on while you do this, so the tire/wheel doesn't drop on you, and of course use proper safety gear. If you do this exactly as I have described, you should have both off in around 5 minutes.

Good luck.

Oh, and one more thing...please don't put grease or anti-seize on lug nuts...put brand new studs in, get new nuts as well, torque them properly, and you shouldn't have issues. Dorman makes replacements and can be had for $1-2 per piece, and are readily available at your local parts store.

mo8414

If you drill it out don't cheap out on the drill bits. Find a machine tool store like production tool or something(do not use harber freight drills). If you can, buy cobalt drills. Get some cutting oil too and use it liberally. Try not to push to hard on the first small drill you use as it can break easily and get stuck in the hole which makes your life that much harder. Just take your time.
An oxy act torch should have easily blew them nuts out of their, they didn't have it set right.

They also sell carbide burr bits that can easily eat threw the lug nut and stud. Best used in a die grinder that can be bought cheap at harbor freight.

Rogue4x4

At this point, though, drilling would be a ton of work. Look at that picture he posted again, those things are FUBAR'd pretty bad, and in order to get a drill bit to bite properly, you'd need to do some grinding to get a smooth surface to drill on...probably with a dremel or die grinder. That's gonna take some time, then drilling out, he'd need to start small and work the bit size up, again, time consuming. And plenty of opportunities for it to go south once again. Yes it can be done. But it's a lot more work.

A properly set up oxy torch rig will have that out in 5 minutes. He already has access to the torches, they just need the right setup to get the job done.

Motojunky

Where are you located? Maybe a fellow forum member with more experience is nearby and willing to help.