I was in the process of switching over to the summer rims this morning, but one of the lug nuts was siezed. In the process of trying to get the lug off, I loosened off the stud. The problem is that there is somthing "backing" the stud. To be more precise, the stud spins freely but I can't fully remove it from the hub so it's holding the tire on. Any ideas?

 

Sounds like you may have ruined the splines on the stud. It will be very difficult to keep it from turning if that is the case. You probably need something like a die grinder to grind off the nut. I've never been in that situation before so I wish you luck. Take care of that Tungsten Blue man.

 

wow that sucks, im sure if u take it to a shop theyll get it off for u for like $20 or u could try a dremel and ull eventually cut through it, but that make take a while and depends on the wheels u have may not be able to get that deep in there, ye that sucks!

 

Yeah, I'd take it to a shop. Good luck!

 

To fix it I'm going to have to grind off the stud, I've got about 3/4" of the stud exposed, so I'm not actually going to have to grind off the the lug. There's no way I can get my angle grinder in there due to lack of clearance, so I will have to use a dremel. After that I've got to pull the hub and pound the stud back through the hub and put a stud in. Screw it, I'm taking it to a shop and they can play with it. Good thing the max's are 5 lug. Thanks for the replies.

 

Last fall when putting my winter tires on my 2K2, I had one of my lugs cross-threaded and ended up breaking the stud in half trying to get the lug off. I put in a new stud and it was actually pretty easy. So if you have enough room to get at the stud to cut the lug off, I would not be afraid to tackle this job yourself.

 

Have you thought about drilling it out starting with a smaller bit and increasing in size? Eventually you'd get to the threads of the lug nut and it just might come off.

 

It would be hard to drill if it's not anchored to the hub. From what I read, he said the whole stud turns now.

 

yeah, but if he put the socket (deep) onto the lug, he could grab it with pliers or channel locks while he drilled.

 

That's a possibility. He would have to be a straight driller to get the desired results. He could also end up drilling the inside of the socket. I don't know if he had a regular lug nut or an acorn nut on the stud but he's better off taking it to a shop IMO.

 

Took another look at it and I had almost zero room to work with. I brought it to my trusted tire guy and it took them (or at least they charged me) 1.5 h. They had to cut the stud with an acetylene torch and pull the hub. The splines on the stud stripped. Total bill was $100 which I was OK with.

 

Not bad...but if you had room for a Dremel you would have saved yourself a $100 and only cost you about 0.5 hours in time. Really you don't have to pull the hub to install new studs. You can just tap them in from the back and tighten them down using the washer/overtorque method. I replaced all 10 of my front studs with this method and it took me less than a hour.

Just FYI in the future....

 

I assume they pulled the hub because that was the only way to get the old stud completely out. No one would try to pull the hub to install new studs, unless there's something here I'm missing.

 

did you try drilling it out?

 

Bust out the Sawzall!!!!!!!!!!

 

Good thing it was the splines on the stud that stripped instead of those in the hub.

I'd guess that they cut the head off the stud (working from the back side so as to avoid damaging the wheel with the flame).

Norm

 

I had zero room to work with. I would have preferred doing it myself, but a sign of maturity is understanding which is the least path of resistance