twentyeggs

So I got my drilled and slotted rotors and hawk pads in today and cruised on over to my buddies shop. I swapped the pads changed the rotors bam 15 min done!

Shifted everything over to the other wheel. Rim comes right off, now it's time for the spacer. One two three and nothing. To my disappointment the big O that did my oil change and rotated my tires cross threaded my studs.

Impact hammer did nothing.. I moved up to my largest torque wrench and slip! ****! The lug nut is chewed up and there's no way to get it off with a socket.. It's last resort time. I took a smaller socket and welded it to my lug nut. Took the impact hammer to it and it tore my socket apart **** ******* piece of ******* ****!!!! Now what? Panic set in cause I got crap to do tomorrow and it's too late to get it to a shop. The only alternative now is to destroy my spacers when I realized acetylene torches can't cut aluminum and my spacers are aluminum. Two hours later I melt the stud and the lug nut off and pry off th spacer. Success!! I save my spacer

Never letting a shop take my wheels off again

twentyeggs

Pictures are coming as soon as I get home

NIKV69

How many couldn't you get off. Usually if it's just one you can whack the tire a few times and break it. Who cross threaded the lugs?

T_Behr904

Why did a shop change your oil and rotate your tires, and not you? You're risking getting your man card revoked for doing that.

2000_MAXIMA_KING

iTrader: (30)

Yea especially since he stated he was a mechanic who makes the big bucks

T_Behr904

And the plot thickens...

nelledge

iTrader: (6)

The bigger question is what makes you think the shop ruined your studs? It doesn't make sense that a shop would remove the spacers to rotate the wheels. You stated you removed the rim without a problem. I assume that means the studs that were stripped were specific to the spacer. Is it possible that the person who installed the spacers did it?

Also, be careful with torches around aluminum. Just because you can't visually see yourself causing damage to the surface doesn't mean you're not. Heat treatment of aluminum is a precise endeavor. Incorrect heating can cause internal stress/strains and lead to cracks or distortion caused by creep from the high temps. I'm glad you got the job done, but keep this in mind next time you use a material as a thermal backing. Just like people, the true story is seldom at the surface.

Mr. Brett

iTrader: (7)

twentyeggs

i haven't worked as a big rig mechanic for 4 years, i went back to school, and i let shops do my oil changes because with a coupon i can get it done cheaper than to do it myself. my last oil change cost 12 bucks and i didn't even need to get my hands dirty.

take my man card lol when you work on cars doing routine maintenance work for any length of time at any point in your life, you don't wanna do an oil change unless its going to save you money... and it doesn't.

twentyeggs

oh and your right, my spacers must have not been stripped durring that oil change, i didn't think about that.. it must have been before that... all i know is i didn't do it, i don't cross thread crap, someone with a trigger happy impact hammer had to have done that.

the way this one was threaded the ******* mechanic knew he f'd up and didn't say or do anything about it. just kept on tightening it.

twentyeggs

i was as careful as i could be. I only torched the stud/nut for about 30 seconds a time and used a bucket of cold water and rag to cool the spacer down. it was very time consuming.

I know the spacer is all messed up looking but its still solid and the parts that matter in regard to functionality are still very much intact and solid.

remember this was a salvage job, and for melting a hardened stud and lug nut inside of a piece of metal i think i did a good job. i couldn't afford the time to tow my car to a shop and leave it overnight, i have stuff to do tomorrow.

twentyeggs

just one. you can see in the pic.

to the rest

BE NICE! i had a stressful long grueling brake job and i burned my eyeball with a splatter of molten metal!!

Mr. Brett

iTrader: (7)

It probably would've been less time consuming to remove the brake caliper and then either melt or grind off the head of that stud and then tap it out with a hammer, no?

I don't remember what clearance was like on my 5.5 trying to get in to replace the two studs I snapped off...it's been a while. I know it wasn't an awfully hard job, though.

twentyeggs

no the lug nut and stud are inside the spacer, there was literally no way to get to it. the caliper was already off at that point.

it was either the torch or 20 drill bits ground down and sharpened to a nub. that is if i could still hand sharpen a dull bit, its been a very long time and it takes constant practice.

if i had a plasma torch it would have been a piece of cake..

HMAX08

Eggy, if the bolt for the spacers were cross threaded, could you just get one of those screw extractor things for lug luts. I had my spacer bolt (bolt on spacers) with the bolt on too tight, impact gun gould not get it off so, we use the screw extractor and booom, it came out no issues

NIKV69

He does have a point. Shops buy oil by the barrel (50g) so going to Auto barn and paying $30 bucks for oil and filter is still more than some of these places. As long as you can get out without them selling you brakes and other stuff.

I do my own but with Mobil 1. Cheapest I can get it is 27 bucks. I also found a place to get the older bigger 105 filter but it costs $10. So you still pay a bit more.

So you use a torch with no eye protection? LOL. I also LOL at the overspray on your inner fender from when you painted your calipers.

2000_MAXIMA_KING

iTrader: (30)

I don't even understand why this is a thread? If you really are a "mechanic" you would understand **** like this happens all the time. Should I make a thread about every rusted/stuck bolt/nut I run into, half my subframe collar kit is installed because of **** like this. It happens all the time get over it.

latinmaxima

Atleast you got it off and still seem to have an ok spacer. I would look into replacing it later on when you can afford to though just to be safe. I am curious about the screw extractor working or not.

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

That's funny. In 18 years of working on my own cars, 5 years of doing suspension work for a living, and several thousand wheel/tire changes, I have yet to damage a wheel stud on my car or a customer's car. Yet somehow my local Discount Tire managed to mangle three studs on one wheel and two on another the last time I had tires mounted.. And I'd just had the wheels off that car a week before to change brake pads and put more anti-seize on the, so I know they weren't seized before I took the car to them. Since they managed to mangle them while my wheel was still on the car, I ran into very much the same issues as mentioned above- except I couldn't take a torch to mine to get it off.

2000_MAXIMA_KING

iTrader: (30)

I feel you, I get my tires mounted on the wheels off the car and take them there and when I get home I put them on the car. Its convenient to always have another car or another set of wheels w/tires.

Rods03Max619

iTrader: (5)

Holy ****....

Mr. Brett

iTrader: (7)

That's because half of the morons at Discount Tire don't understand that you need to start threading the lugnut before you actually hit it with the impact. They zap them on like they're swapping wheels on a NASCAR or something.

Last time I was at my local Discount Tire, (I know the manager pretty well), I actually asked for permission to re-install three of my wheels myself after I watched some idiot kid zap the five lug nuts onto the first one without evening starting the nuts onto the studs.

twentyeggs

no i was wearing my sun glasses and it bounced up and fell down the little space between my nose and eye lol

and yes i know the overspray is there, my bag job wasn't the finest.. meh.... no big deal... i considered fixing it but was like, no one can see that.. lol

twentyeggs

i know man... it was just a funny story and wanted to talk about it, see if anyone else ever had this problem and what they did to solve it.

2000_MAXIMA_KING

iTrader: (30)

Ah honestly I was being a jackass with that statement, I stand corrected as Matt corrected me this is a special case. I once couldn't get the lug nut off of my dads minivan. My brother had got a flat drove on it and let it sit for a week. When we went to get the wheel off one of the lug nuts was stuck. We broke the 4-way and two sockets before we quit. It was the only time I ever felt incompetent working on a car

tseng1023

iTrader: (9)

wow...guess i better help the guy out who asked me to buy lug nuts..