My project for this weekend was to take off each of the wheels, tape up the lip of the wheel well and then paint the wheel well interior black to give the wheel well a cleaner look.

Well, the "$HIT!" part is that THIS didn't happen. I went to Canadian Tire to buy this "+" shaped tool that is suppose to get the lug nuts off. Unfortunately, the strength of me and 2 of my friends couldn't get those dam lugnuts off!!! I couldn't undo even one! I tried everything, but I guess my mechanic used his little power gun and tighted those bolts way too hard.

Any ideas how I can get them off?

My second project this weekend was to take off the TBplate, and polish it to a chrome like finish. Well, sort of worked and sort of didn't. I polished it up pretty good, but there were still some deep scratches in it. What did I do? I did what I wanted to do! I went and bought some metallic blue paint to match the exterior of my car, and sprayed the entire TBplate metallic blue. Sofar looks cool drying! Let's see how it'll look on the car!

 

all you need to do is turn it the other way and it will come right off
painting your TB plate? hmmmmmm where have i seen that

oh ya

 

are you some kind of moron?

 

Tighty righty

Loosy lefty

 

Man I can't stop laughing !!!!

 

dude i'm telling you the nuts are too tight, i've had everybody try, nobody can take them off by hand!

hey trigger, did you powdercoat your runners or paint your runners? I was thinking of painting my runners blue this week. will that work?

 

ever thought of putting a breaker bar on a rachet and trying that? some penetrating oil would help things too. maybe you should just stick to the basics, liking putting stickers that look gay on your car.

 

You must be turning them the wrong way. They can't all be that tight.

 

painting them will work fine

brad lay off man.. everyone has to lean. it seem he is trying to learn. cut him some slack

 

Alex, try putting the wrench on the lug nuts and then try and stand on the wrench at the end farthest away from the nut. The torque on that nut will equal what ever your weight is, in ft/lbs (provided the wrench is 12" long). I think you only need to tighten them to 90 ft/lbs or so. Most air driven impact guns can tighten nuts to around 240 ft/lbs or so.

If your car has the jack in the trunk of the car, use the wrench that comes with it. You can fit a pipe on the end of that one more easily than those 4 in 1 wrenches.

The other guys have already mentioned it, but to tighten the nut, turn clockwise, to loosen, turn counter-clockwise.

PS - you are trying to loosen them with the car on the ground right?

 

dear ***.. our lugnuts are only supposed to be tightened around the 70 ft/lb range (something from auto shop class a long while ago)

Alex on the other hand couldn't get off a bolt hanging on to his coolant overflow bottle... hmmm lol

If you want, I can take a shot at it tomorrow afternoon.

 

Brad: I could say something, but you've already shown how mature you are so I won't bother stooping down to your level.

Everyone else: Thanks for the ideas... The 4-in-1 thing didn't work no matter how hard anybody tried. My mechanic uses that power gun so they're on super duper tight.

I'm thinking I'll try a rachet tomorrow, but I'm not sure whether or not I have one that big, gotta check!


TRIGGER:
Did you paint your runners or did you powdercoat them???

If I do choose to paint them, do I have to sand them down beforehand? I figure I won't, because the paint will dry smooth overtop of the roughness???

 

i just painted them. you should still lighly sand them to help the paint hold. 400 would be fine

 

If its any consolation to the ridicule alex, your posts always give me a good laugh. But anyway you need to sand the TB down you cant just polish it. If you just polish it, it will be shiny but not a smooth finish.
greg

 

ok i'm going to do it this week.

one question scott... how did you exactly paint the runners? did you just lay them on some newspaper and paint every piece of metal you saw? or did you hang them up somewhere and paint them? what'd you do? only reason i ask is because i'm using the "motomaster perfect gm match" paint from canadian tire, and although it's not a perfect match it's pretty good paint. but i did notice that it's a little "runny" shall i say? how did you keep the paint from running and dripping, etc...

 

Its supposed to simulate something 'close' to real automotive paint (if that can actually be achieved from a can). Just spray a couple of very light coats letting it dry in between & you'll be fine. If Rovic can't get the lugs off for you let me know, I've got an impact gun I can take them off with.

 

No offense Easy, but painting the runners is not hard but for someone who's having a hard time getting lug nuts off?!? Just removing the runners alone is a couple hours work. Then prepping and stuff...it's a cool project, but it may not be as simple as you think.

 

you might want some help with that one. it will take some work and tools to remove the runners.

i painted then just like you see in the pic. i have paint mixed to match and used a paint gun.

 

So pretty.

:hail:

 

Pot
Kettle
Black

If the lugs are on that tight, be careful. You may tear up or break the wheel stud getting them off. Using an air gun on alloy wheels is teh st00pid.

 

I always use a gun to tighten my wheels except its on a low setting..lol

From a tire wrench to a ratchet??Use a stubby box wrench instead??lol

Seriously get a pipe at the end of the cross tire wrench as leverage..then break that stud!!!

Daz

 

CTC paint is garbage..anybody else try to use the touchup stuff and have it fall back off??

Do your self a favour and get a custom spray bomb made in any colour at a REAL autobody paint shop. Should cost about $20.
Well worth it.

The wheel nut torque is 80lbft in our cars. Air guns are trouble!! You can actually warp rotors by overtorquing the wheel nuts with them.

 

^
l
l

 

easySPEEDcamaro.
I have been down the road of tight nuts(!) before many times. Using a long pipe on the end of a ratchet spells death for ANY ratchet. They are not designed to do this. A 24" breaker bar works wonders. BUT, if I were you, I would take the car back to the place (or another place) that used the airgun in the first place. I have an air gun that loosens up to 600 lb ft, so a shop airgun will loosen them for you with no problemo. Then use a torque wrench to tighten them back up again properly. Then drive back home.

Hope this helps.
Andy.

 

Have someone losen them with an impact gun as mentioned above otherwise there's good chance you and your friends will twist the studs right off. Happened to me once just using a 4 way tyre iron.

 

http://www.motorsportconnect.com/car...e/Protege1.WMV

The infamous "Special Day" car.

(Not lugnuts, but close enough. )

 

lol i still can't stop laughing. thanks for the good one

 

Broke 3 of the 3" socket extensions trying to get one of my lugnuts off..(NO none of the extensions were snap-on, craftsman, husky, mac or any other name brand---came out of several tool kits I have that are either Made in Taiwan, R.O.C, Japan, etc....)

.some moron obviously torqued it with an impact gun....took it to Discount Tire and told them I had a slow leak in the tire (they fix flats for free) also asked would they change the oddsize lugnut I had on there with a new one I gave them. 3 nuts were SAE size and one was an 18MM naturally the 18MM was the super tight one. 5th one is a locking nut

 

I'm 39 seconds into the video, and I'm expecting the tool to break and he falls on his head.