Changing a flat tire.... with a sledgehammer??

Had to sledgehammer the flat tire/rim off the hub, it had rusted on so hard -- which is strange, bec the tires had been rotated a month or two ago.

I've had to kick rims off hubs before, but never sledgehammer it off -- and I'm not talking taps, I'm talking full swings. I almost gave up!! The wood I used to protect the rim edge was destroyed. Had this flat occurred anywhere but right outside my shop, it woulda needed towing. It was a full 1/2 hour workout -- I needed a nappypoo afterwards.

Should I grease the rim/hub contact area? A number of people have told me not to. Heat issues? A high-temp grease? Maybe fabricate some kind of shim? Alum? Nylon?

How about greasing lug nuts? I need to use a pipe on the lug wrench, and sometimes I think the stud is going to break off with the g-d nut. Mebbe anti-seize compound, or loctite?

Reply to
Existential Angst
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Some problems here. Some people put some antiseize grease where hub meets wheel. Only a small amount to keep it from fouling brakes.

And some folks put same on lugs. But my car says 100 ft-lbs DRY torque on lug nuts. No mention of correct torque on lubed lugs. If I lube lugs, then at 100 ft-lbs I'm going to SNAP a lug off, or put so much tension on the bolt that it won't hold in a high speed turn without failing.

I personally, just guessing, would de-rate from 100 ft-lbs to about 75 ft-lbs if using antiseize on wheel lugs. But that's just me. _Definitely_ use antiseize on rim-hub contact area.

Lg

Reply to
Nicholas

If you had the time to sandblast or beadblast those rims, prime and paint them properly, you could probably avoid a good bit of rust damage.

I dont see anything wrong with putting some grease or antiseize at the rim/hub junction, but it would be short lived, particularly if the corrosive environment where you live is as bad as it sounds.

We been over the antiseize issue with studs and lugnuts a lot of times. The car companies tell you to do the toqueing DRY. You can clean the threads with a wire brush or a thread chaser if you like.

And you CAN apply some antiseize to keep the rust from welding the stud and nut together, but you certainly have to de-rate the torque specification. I ran a Google on this a few years ago, and as I remember it you need to reduce the torque by 15-20%. It doesnt make any difference whether you use persistent grease or antiseize, they both reduce the friction and you should reduce the torque.

I have done this is in icy areas where rust is a problem and never had a problem with nuts loosening, but that is the decision you have to make, or not.

Reply to
hls

Next time they rust on like that, loosen the lug nuts two or three turns and drive around the block.That might wobble the wheel(s) loose enough to take them off. cuhulin

Reply to
J R

BTDT.

Never had it happen until I bought a car with aluminum hub-centered rims, where the fit of the rim on the center round part of the hub had to be a tight fit.

Antiseize on the mating surfaces turned the trick, after a thorough cleaning.

I did have to spend quite awhile chipping a layer of very hard AL oxidation from the rim (on the flat and the centering-ring part) to get it to fit properly and without a noticeable (shaking at speed) runout.

Dave

Reply to
dcloss

I've used wheel-bearing grease for the rim/hub contact area and whatever is in my general purpose oil can (usually ~30wt motor oil) for the lug nuts for many years. My truck is a Chevy 1982 K10 (bought it new) and I've never had any nuts come loose and a rim has never stuck on the hub. I always use a 4-way lug wrench to finish torquing down the lug nuts. Learned my lessons with impact wrenches, nuts coming loose, nuts too tight, stuck rims... when I was still a teenager. Don't want to repeat any of them nowadays, except maybe being that old again, provided I can take along my accumulated knowledge ;-)

Reply to
Leon Fisk

I thought of that later, but this was a rim-on-the-pavement type flat. Altho, jacking the truck up, and doing this back and forth on a piece of ply might have done the trick as well.

But based on the unanimous response here, I proly won't have to go through this again.

Reply to
Existential Angst

That doesn't work on some cars. IME German ones like BMW and Porsche that tend to have all the parts and especially the unsprung ones engineered to be as strong as they need to be but no heavier. But it seems to be spreading to all newer vehicles. On vehicles like that uneven torquing can cause undesirable vibrations and mimic warped brake rotors.

On something old and American with steel wheels, your method is probably fine.

nate

Reply to
N8N

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net (J R) wrote in news:29034-4EA5B35A-357@storefull-

3171.bay.webtv.net:

Don't even need to drive that far. 20- or 30-feet with the lug nuts loose should be enough.

Wiggle the steering wheel a lot during those 20- or 30-feet.

Reply to
Tegger

"Existential Angst" wrote in news:4ea58e08$0$28380$ snipped-for-privacy@cv.net:

But the rust was not sanded off. And that's the problem.

Each time the wheel is removed, you need to use 50-grit emery cloth to sand off the rust where the wheel contacts the hub. If you do not, the rust will build up and have an amazing tendency to bind firmly with the wheel and make it the devil's own work to get the wheel off again.

Yes. But first sand the rust off!

Go ahead, no worries. Excess grease get flung outwards and ends up on the inner face of the rim, eventually covered with dust. It goes nowhere near the brakes.

No. Just use anything you've got handy. Anti-seize, Crisco, bacon grease, lard, anything. The very best is Dow-Corning MolyKote M-77. It's expensive, but is astonishing stuff.

No lube is needed, just proper torque.

If the nuts were difficult to bust loose, they were overtightened to begin with. Use a torque wrench, follow the automaker's instructions, and those nuts will come loose as easy as pie. Even in the Rust Belt.

Reply to
Tegger

"mimic warped brake rotors" - indeed. it's a serious issue on some cars. civics and integras are crazy sensitive to it.

Reply to
jim beam

flung oil/grease rots tire rubber. not a great idea. stick to anti-seize. one tub will last hundreds of wheels.

Reply to
jim beam

don't use a sledge - you can brinell wheel bearings. loosen the lugs so there's a small gap between them and the wheel, then drive around the block and brake hard. that'll do it. once loose, tighten again and drive back home. it'll come off easy then.

use anti-seize. grease/oil flings and gets on tire rubber and even brake disks. bad idea.

anti-seize is fine. just don't over-do it. loctite is good too, though /much/ more expensive. loctite has the benefit of not over-lubricating the stud and upsetting the wheel torque settings while still sealing against corrosion. with anti-seize on the lug threads, you may need to back off factory torque spec a little.

Reply to
jim beam

grinding/abrasive wheels are a bad idea. they remove metal as well as rust. taken to extremes [repeated operations over time], they can lead to out-of-round conditions.

best to use a bladed scraper that doesn't remove metal and keeps surfaces flat. or a wire brush/wheel if you insist on being motorized.

Reply to
jim beam

the studs and tapered nuts center the wheel on MOST cars. The concentricity or roundness of the "stub" is really not all that critical as they are not, generally, designed to be "hub-centric"

Reply to
clare

you're right. i said "out-of-round" because "planar wobble" wasn't working for me.

Reply to
jim beam

Gunner Asch on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:27:44 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

I just tighten mine to the "skweek" point - that's a bit after the "Ugh point" but just after the nut and wheel give of a little "twennk" kind of sound. Using an "Iron Cross", I get good enough leverage. Haven't had a tire fall off. Although I came close back in '76, but I was using a air wrench on that occasion.

-- pyotr Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb.

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

I've only had that happen on cars where inside of center hole of rim, and the nipple-looking part of brake drum or hub, were a real tight fit, almost like a taper drill bit. Yeah, I DO live in salt country, why?

As to cure- cleaning the mating surfaces, and a light coat of oil, rubbed in, seemed to help. Same thing for lugs- if they are rusty or totally dry, wire brush the crud out, and oil. If NUTS are rusty, spend a few bucks and use fresh ones. If fixing up an old car or keeping a beater usable, consider wire-wheeling and painting the backside of rim. Rust is real good at fusing naked metal surfaces together. Mercedes used to have repainting the wheel rims on the long-term-upkeep callout list.

Now that I'm old and tired, and have a little cashflow, I don't remove wheel rims myself any more.

Reply to
aemeijers

At the tire shop I go to (that does mostly commercial vehicles and large trucks) they smear this clear grease stuff around the tire's beads before seating it on the rim. I've never asked what it was, the stuff might be plain silicone grease for all I know. ,,,, But I do know that with tubeless bicycle wheel setups, you need to use some kind of liquid sealer or else too much air leaks out between the tire & rim.... (the bead systems of bicycles and cars aren't quite alike, but anyway)

And I dunno jack squat about changin tires profeshionnaly,,,,, but I never knew anyone with a level head to use anti-seize on lug nuts.

Reply to
DougC

On front wheels I've had to get the tire spinning, and shove the lug wrench on the lugnut to break them loose, when only the X wrench was availible and there was no way to get to other tools. I've also had to drive a flat tire up on the spare to be able to get the jack under an old truck.

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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