Well i was rotating my tiers and i took off a lug and snap half of it came off an the other half stayed on and i cant get it off what do i do ?????????

 

Most tire stores have spiral sockets that hammer onto a lug nut or wheel lock and grab on to it... Like an easy - out but grabs the outside. I can ship you a set maybe, since I work at a tire store!

 

Cool Avatar Butters!

 

If it was the aluminum lug nut and the hex broke and left the spherical seat part there, you have to machine the nut off as there is nothing to grap onto. That indicates someone used an impact wrench to tighten or loosen it. There is a procedure in the WSM. It is a special tool that machines the lug nut away but you have to be very careful not to damage the rim.

 

Not saying you did this, but don't mix alu studs and steel nuts. DIYs w/o air tools will twist off a stud, when an air wrench might hammer the same nut loose w/o damage. OTH, an air wrench on alu nuts is not good. In either case I think you should get to a shop and proably replace that stud. Use alu acorn nuts to prevent corrosion.

 

be very careful if you drill, not to kill the wheel. It is hard to see where wheel ends and lug ends. I would drill at either side of the stud, with a fine bit and try to break the remaining material into 2 pieces.

 

Steve I've never heard of Aluminium studs? Porsches use steel....

 

thx i will start at the top of the list and work my way down

 

I have the same problem. I had luck with the "Bolt Out" product from Sears, but unfortunately, I got the set that needs a wrench, so I will be going back for the one below.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/produ...seBVCookie=Yes

 

Aluminium 'case hardens' that means the more times you hit it the the more times it is likely to fracture and break. Don't use an impact wrench, and treat them with respect, and they will last forever.
Ask any body guy who works and reworks AL body panels.

 

I think you meant to say "work hardens". I'm kinda hoping that there isn't much metal moving around/distorting when I loosen or tighten the lug nuts. If there is, we need to start prediciting life-cycle failures for the nuts. I follow the Porsche recommendation for a little non-graphite grease (optimoly) on the lug nut faces to eliminate galling there. I readily admit that I use the impact gun to remove lug nuts, and also use a smaller gun to run them back on. Two steps of torque wrench for tightening, of course. The impact in this service doesn't sit there and hammer the nuts to death in either direction. When tightened correctly with the torque wrench, they come off quite easily.

 

Even if you use it to loosen it will put large stresses on the nut. It may not be as much as when tightening them but that only means the fracture will take a little longer to happen.

 

So, how many times is it OK before it will fail?

I do recognize that there are some materials engineers in the group who are a lot smarter than I am. At the same time, it would be prudent for Porsche to warn owners of the impending doom that might result from using the wrong wrench to loosen the lug nuts. I think I'll stand by my thinking that says that a properly lubricated and tightened lug nut can be safely and repeatedly removed with the impact wrench. The "large stresses on the nut" are minimal compared with the loading that they see in normal driving service.

We often look at reasons for using the torque wrench on the lug buts. One, obviously, is the survival of the nuts themselves. My thinking is that the risk is more of galling and seizure of the face of the nut against the wheel, rather than twisting the hex part of the nut off the cone face section. The galling takes place as often from loose nuts as from over-tightened ones. Other less obvious reasons for using proper torque include the risk of warping the hats, and then there's the risk of damage to the wheel itself. All things to keep in mind as you give the nuts a little 'extra' tug to make sure they won't fall off, or decide to leave them a little loose to preserve their metallurgical integrity.

My less-than-expert opinion, of course!

 

I have never once seen a failed lug nut. I think I've owned several hundreds.

 

It is not the stress of the nut holding the wheel in place. In fact as you can see here, with out the hex part of the nut the wheel stays firmly put. It will not come off. The issue is that at the point where the fat round part becomes a smaller hex part there is a much smaller cross section of material. The twisting action of the loosening process puts a stress on that small cross section. Impacting anything increases that load significantly. The friction of the nut on the seat (worse if you have any surface imperfections) is what causes the higer load on that small crossection.