Had to make an emergency locking wheel nut tool.

[Pete.]

I needed to get the wheel off my daughter's VW today but the locking wheelnut adapter was nowhere to be found. It's usually kept in the car so very strange but we turned it inside out and didn't find it. So I decided to make one.

I counted the splines and made my best efforts to measure the diameters considering the bolt was deep in the well on the wheel. Then I had to find something for indexing to cut the splines on my lathe. Turns out I had a gear tooth cutter with the correct number of teeth so I used that.

The cutter has a 1" bore and I had some 1" BMS rod so I put that in a collet and knurled it to raise the OD somewhat. Then I tapped the cutter onto the knurl to grip it and found a couple of bits of cast iron to rudimentary indexing.

I turned the spline OD in the bar, machined a relief groove then made a tool to cut the splines. It's just a normal lathe bit ground 45 degrees each way to make a 90 degree cutter. That was put in the holder on it's side. Once it was set up all I had to do was use the cutter with the lathe motor turned off, all the cutting being done by hand-cranking the saddle up and down using the cross-slide to make a series of 5 thou cuts until I got it to depth.

Once it was cut I parted off the bar and welded it into an old 1" socket. After a couple of false starts and a bit of relieving with a 5" grinder I was able to bash the home made tool into the locking wheel nut and remove it easily.

 

[Johnseat]

Take it you don't have an ally bar which would have smacked into the bolt head and then have had a socket smacked onto it.
I've seen that done before to great effect.

Your method is far more precise and I would imagine you got some satisfaction out of making the tool

 

[doubleboost]

Well done that must have been very satisfying
A 1/2 inch square extension bar hammered in also works
Locking wheel nuts are the "scourge" of the motor trade
We spend more time looking for the Bastard keys

 

[optima21]

first time I lost a locking wheel nut key, I bored out an old socket and loctited it onto the wheel bolt. hammering an old socket over the wheelbolts seemed to be a bit brutal at the time.

last time I lost a locking wheel key, the wheelbolt had a rotating outer, so I couldnt use the first method. on this one I copied the shape if the pattern on the wheel bolt like this one

then cut the shape out of the key with a dremel into a block of steel. when new key was roughly to shape it was hammered onto the nut so that it left a witness mark of the final shape. it was then trimmed to the outline. once again because the bolts arn't over tightened it worked. I found the proper key a couple of months later, so I'm still using the bolts now.

we should be careful what we post as we're showing people how to steal wheels from cars.....dont think people will have as much time as it took me to do this if they were stealing though

 

[ms08]

I don't think wheel theft is so much of a problem now as virtually every car has them.
Can only see them being nicked for scrap and i think CATS fetch more money.....

 

[Windy Miller]

Nice job there Pete!

 

[pedrobedro]

we should be careful what we post as we're showing people how to steal wheels from cars.....dont think people will have as much time as it took me to do this if they were stealing though

Alloy wheels are so common they aren't worth stealing, the tyres are worth more nowadays. My daughter had some tyres fitted and the nuts were so tight I couldn't get the wheels off to do the brakes later on for MOT. She took it back where the tyres were fitted and they wrecked the nuts getting them off so they supplied some new ones. They used the Irwin tool with an impact driver to get them loosened off.

 

[mm289]

Nice bit of innovative engineering Pete - bet you were a bit miffed you couldn't find the nut though usually the last person who took a wheel off ois the culprit for not putting it back

Cheers,

MM

 

[Bill Edwards]

Pete, roughly how long does it take to produce that?

 

[Pete.]

About an hour. I don't think I would have liked to do the one Optima posted though

It was satisfying to see it work but I should have liked to have got the size just right. The difficulty was getting the caliper in to get a proper measurement. If I had given it a bit more thought I could have hammered a bit of dowel in there or even pressed in some plasticine at a pinch.

This has highlighted to me once again that I really need to get a set of plates for my dividing head.

 

[Pete.]

Nice bit of innovative engineering Pete - bet you were a bit miffed you couldn't find the nut though usually the last person who took a wheel off ois the culprit for not putting it back

Cheers,

MM

Ah, unfortunately, that was me. I was still miffed though.

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Nice work.
I must admit the only one of my cars with locking wheel nuts is a Smart - and this has reminded me to source 4 normal bolts to replace them

 

[Bill Edwards]

About an hour. I don't think I would have liked to do the one Optima posted though

It was satisfying to see it work but I should have liked to have got the size just right. The difficulty was getting the caliper in to get a proper measurement. If I had given it a bit more thought I could have hammered a bit of dowel in there or even pressed in some plasticine at a pinch.

This has highlighted to me once again that I really need to get a set of plates for my dividing head.

Not so bad then, my initial thought when I read the post was that must take ages!
I can certainly see the difficulty in measuring it, I suppose a set of dividers with the ends bent in slightly would be the easiest way to then transfer the measurement (not something I'd be doing to mine though!). Perhaps you can get calipers that're the right shape for it, but you never have these things when you need it.

For the one posted by Optima an extractor tool would be my choice every time! I had a key snap and it was out with the welder, I wouldn't attempt making a key - though I did know that mine would be very tight.

 

[MCKDAVID]

how long after the Wheel was off before you found the original? always seems to happen to me...

 

[Pete.]

If anyone wants to nick the wheels it means they've probably already nicked the car, and the wheelnut tool is bound to be in the glove box.

 

[doubleboost]

The only thing locking wheel nuts do is make the life of a Mechanic more miserable

 

[Bill Edwards]

The only thing locking wheel nuts do is make the life of a Mechanic more miserable

Seeing as we don't seem to hear of major problems with wheel thefts I have to agree with you.

 

[Pete.]

Four new wheel bolts coming on Monday. Can't find the tool and I don't want to have to rely on my home-made one over time.

 

[Barlidge]

I think the modern scrote lack the skills of the old school variety, most would probably struggle with the skills and effort required to jack up and remove the wheels - sign of the times.

 

[pedrobedro]

I think the modern scrote lack the skills of the old school variety, most would probably struggle with the skills and effort required to jack up and remove the wheels - sign of the times.

Some are quite determined though. Young lad round the corner had a Saxo with the bean can tailpipe back box and he got in to go to work only to be surprised at the amount of noise it made. Someone had taken back box, clamp and hangers during the night.