Help or advice required

I have a damaged locking wheel nut on my 7 spoke 20" alloys.

I have also noticed that the locking nut key cup was mis-shapen, which probably damaged the nut in the first place.

Looking closely at the nut it appears to be made of two parts - the top part of the nut (closest to the outside face of the alloy) spins free from the bottom part inside the wheel. The locking teeth on this bottom part have sheared off.

After 'adjusting' the key cup with a hammer and forming it back into shape I am able to remove the remaining three wheel lock nuts but still cant free the damaged one, probably making it worse judging by the freshly milled metal flakes inside the nut hole on the alloy.

Also -after looking at the state of the remaining lock nuts - they could all do with replacing really.

Has anyone had the same problems and can you suggest a method of getting it off without damaging the alloy? / What type of Locking Wheel Nuts are recommended to replace the old ones?

I broke a locking nut once, I took it to kwikfit and they used a reverse screw thing on it that goes over it and then winds onto it to undo it.

I don't use locking wheelnuts now, no one steals alloys anymore now that every car already has them. Not round here anyway.

D 

Hi,
I had this problem recently on a friends Disco 3. Same style of locking nut though. He had been provided with the wrong key for the nuts (by LR!) and needed the problem sorted ASAP.

There are two pieces, both are profiled to match the key and need to be lined up for the key to engage properly. The top, spinning, hardened section is to prevent "removers" being used I think. I couldn't get past it with my extractors therefore took the "wrong" key, attached it via an impact socket to the end of a breaker bar, fitted it on the top of the nut and battered it on with a big hammer.... An impact gun then removed the offending nut whilst letting me keep the mess alligned etc.

Obviously, after it was off, I carefully checked the stud and threw all of the locking nuts away. There were slight scrapes to the counterbore on the wheel but these were minor.