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Major problem - Lost my Lug Nut key

Yeah, I left the key in one of the lug nuts and drove away. It's somewhere along 6 miles of road.

It's a 94 Plymouth Minivan with original equipment alloy wheels. I could get a new key, if I had the number that's on it, but that's beside the road somewhere, too. The previous owner didn't keep anything except the owner's manual. The reverse internal helical tool the local autoparts store sells for this job is too small. These nuts have an annular ring that's roughly

3/4" in diameter with a key that fits inside the ring around the stud. Of course, the nuts are recessed deep inside the wheels. I've tried the following:
  1. Try Sears to see if their similar nut removing tools are any bigger. Still too small.
  2. Hammer a 7/8 impact socket onto the ring. Not quite tight enough to allow enough torque.
  3. Hammer a 15 mm impact socket on. Better, but still can't apply enough torque to loosen.
  4. I just spent an hour and a half on the lathe making a key to fit into the recess, using 1/8" ball bearings in place of the ridges on the original key. The balls were set in holes drilled into the sides of the key. All I had was mild steel, though, and the whole thing just tore loose when I applied torque. Now I've got the remains of the tool and some ball bearings stuck in one of the nuts.
  5. Spent an hour with a Dremel tool trying to smooth off enough of the surface to drill down one side to break the nut. Ruined two carbide tools and only made a notch in one place on the annular ring.

I'm running out of ideas.

If I had a stick welder, I suppose I could weld the remains of my tool to the nut and turn it out, but all I have is gas.

Any other great inspirations? Thanks.

-- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love America

Reply to
Bob Chilcoat
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this company makes alot of the locks that are on vehicles, maybe you could trace the pattern and fax it to them.

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i would stop at a salvage yard, they must get salvaged vehicles with wheels locks on them they had to remove without the keys. those are all my ideas, good luck, walt

Reply to
wallster

Braze your tool onto the nut. Steve

Reply to
Steve Peterson

Did you take it to the shop (auto repair) and ask the Mechanic to spin it off with his air chisel. Of course you have to find someone who is good at this. I have done more then a few and it is kind of fun when you win. Of course they could burn it off, but that would probably damage the wheel unless the guy was REAL good with a torch. Good luck Doug

Reply to
Douglas R. Probst

First, I'd call around to some local tire shops, they run into this kind of problem more than the rest of us. Locksmith's too. IIRC, $nap-On and other tool Mfg's make big expensive 'master removal' sets to deal with just this issue... one of your tire/locksmiths will probably have one. Have a new set of lugs with you.

If that doesn't work (or if they want to much money), take it somewhere where you can have some big nuts or whatever tack welded on the ends of the old lugs, and go from there. Seems if you have it prepared, and the nuts to be tacked all ready to go, it shouldn't be much of a job...

Good Luck!

Erik

Reply to
Erik

Ford had a complete set of McGuard keys and got them off in about 10 minutes. I tried the local tire chains and they suggested Ford.

Joel. phx

Reply to
Joel Corwith

Assuming the studs push out of their holes in the hub, I'd just centerpunch the end of the stud and have at it with increasing size drills until the nut fell off, then remove the wheel, punch the remains of the stud out of the hub and whack in a new stud bought from an auto parts store for a couple of bucks.

Tire shops bust off studs with rusted on nuts all the time through hefty application of an impact wrenche. They don't even think twice about it, they just knock out and replace the stud.

HTH,

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

I left my car at a dealer for a brake job once, and forgot to give them the lugnut key. As near as I could tell when I got the car back they had taken a pneumatic chisel to the thinnest part of the metal between one edge of the key depression and the side of the key. Then having established a groove there, they used the air chisel at a tangent to get the nut loostened.

Reply to
John Ings

He did say the nuts were recessed deep in the wheels John. I don't think that chisel technique would work in that case.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Mine were well recessed -- standard CRX alloy wheels. Nothing you can't get an air chisel to the top of at a 30 degree angle.

Reply to
John Ings

If there is room to get in there, use your Dremel with one of those brittle cut-off wheels. The harder the metal, the better they work. If you can, start with a regular die grinder.

I spent the best part of a weekend drilling one out once when I couldn't do the above. Needless to say, this is one time when you don't want to mess around with cheap drill bits.

Vaughn

Reply to
Vaughn

< snip the tale of woe>

When my daughter lost the key to her wheels (Pontiac) , I took it to the dealer . They had a master set of keys , we tried them until we found one that worked . And didn't even charge me . Have you called any dealers to see if they have a set ?

Reply to
Terry Coombs

I certainly won't argue with success John! Glad they got it off.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Question:

When you get them off, are you going to put any back on?

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

The saga continues. As someone pointed out, this is too deeply recessed into the wheel to reach at enough of a angle with my air chisel. I found an old (cheap) 12-point 7/8" socket (hex drive?!) and pounded that onto the annular ring. The socket just split in several places when I applied torque to it. I decided to bite the bullet and just buy the tool that had been offered to do the job. This is what I was sold for $26 at the auto parts store:

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even though I was pretty sure it was too small to fit. None of the description in this web entry was with it, so it seemed to be the right tool

When I got it home it became obvious that it didn't fit properly, but I figured that this was the right tool, so I tried pounding it on. Too small, even after grinding a chamfer around the inlet edge. The auto parts store will not take it back, now.

I finally tried drilling out the damn thing. Drilled alongside of it with successively larger drills, very carefully so as not to damage the conical hole in the alloy wheel. I then used a round tapered chisel on my air chisel to expand the hole and split the nut. Oops, the annular ring split, along with part of the threads on the nut portion, leaving probably 1/4" of nut left, and 2/3 of the annular ring. At this point I quit for the day, and couldn't work on it yesterday..

After mulling over the problem for a day, I concluded that this method might be OK for the one nut, but I'm not sure I can face doing three more this way. This morning I did a web search for tools. Guess what? THIS is the tool I should have been using:

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Unfortunately, the store does not carry this one, even though it's from the same manufacture. Even though it's on sale, after the shipping and $10 minimum order, it's a lot more than the one that's too small. Crap.

I ordered it, and will report next week if it worked. I just hope I don't get a flat before then...

-- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love America

Reply to
Bob Chilcoat

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:16:20 -0400, "Bob Chilcoat" calmly ranted:

Not to rain on your parade too much, but did you take the vehicle into a tire store to see if they could do it for you? Most tire stores have to have tools like that and either won't charge for it or will only ding you about $5 to do so, then make their money on replacement lug nuts.

Good luck with the new tool. What's that, 3 days and $80 so far?

Ouch!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If God approved of nudity, we all would have been born naked. ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

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Your Wild & Woody Website Wonk

Reply to
Larry Jaques

One of the first places I went was my local tire store, and the Chrysler dealer. The tire store had no tool, suggested he try an air chisel, and could not guarantee that the wheels would not be damaged. He also figured at least an hour - $80. After working on it for six hours, I can't imagine that he could do it in an hour unless he had the special tool I've ordered. The dealer could only get a replacement key if I had the key number, which of course in stamped on the key. The card that came with the car with the key number was not retained by the previous owner. Perhaps I should have tried more than one tire store. If the tool works when it comes, I'll still be pretty happy.

-- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love America

Reply to
Bob Chilcoat

Reply to
Steve Hopper

||Several years ago, during a very heavy rainstorm - at night, my ||right front tire on my Toyota Camry instantly lost all air after ||hitting a pothole. Had to leave car where it was because couldn't ||get the locking lug nut off. I had the key but the wouldn't ||unlock the nut. I had to have the car towed to a local mechanic ||who had a special tool for removing those things. He just took a ||big hammer and drove it onto the offending lug nut, then took a ||socket and pull bar and loosened and removed it. The tool had ||regular nut corners on the outside and was tapered on the inside.

Those are readily available. The inside has teeth. Tap it on, then hit with an impact wrench and off she comes. Texas Parts Guy

Reply to
Rex B

Yeah! The right tool works! The tool I ordered

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yesterday, arrived today, UPS Ground! I guess that's the advantage of ordering from a company in the same state. At any rate, this tool is specifically designed to remove locking lug nuts without the key. It has a larger number of grooves cut into the inside than the "twist socket" I had bought. These are also at a higher helix angle. You don't even need to hammer it on. Just put a breaker bar on it, push it onto the cylindrical lug nut, and it threads itself on. It's tapered inside, so at some point it gets tight enough to apply the requisite torque. Took less than two minutes to remove each locking lug nut, swap sockets on the breaker bar and put on a new, non-locking lug nut. The twist socket I originally bought is clearly designed to remove hex nuts with rounded points. It only has six grooves inside, and a shallow helix. It fits tightly over the nut, and then grabs with the ridges between the grooves. It's also tapered inside. The correct tool for locking lug nuts is designed to grab a round shape. I told the auto parts store that they need to stock the correct tool, not the one they sold me. They're both made by the same manufacturer.

I've replaced all the locking lug nuts with standard ones. I don't ever want to have that problem again. I guess there's a (small) chance I'll come back to the car someday and find it up on cinder blocks, but I'm willing to risk it.

-- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love America

Reply to
Bob Chilcoat

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