Has anyone ever had to drill out a wheel stud?? Reason being, when I went to get my wheels aligned and balanced, some new guy I guess didn't understand "Do not use an air gun". He tightened up my Kyokugen lugs so tight that I have already gone through 2 keys trying to remove them. I got all but one on the rear wheel.

In the process it has rounded off. I tried to chisel it off, hoping that it would split, but that hasn't worked. So, can anyone offer some ideas?? Or should I just drill out the stud?? It helps that my SplineDrives arrive tomorrow, but I still need to do my rear brakes, and I need to get this damn lugnut off.
Thanks

 

hammer a slightly larger socket on there and turn it with a breaker bar. see if that works.

 

Tried that this morning, no luck. It just chewed up the lug, pushed the material in towards the wheel.

 

tac weld the socket on there with a wire feed? since you're not intending on reusing the lug nuts anyway. be careful to cover up the wheel, so that the sparks don't damage it. also, you're not supposed to use an impact gun to put on lug nuts, be it kyokugen lugs or not. suppose to torque them down to spec. you should complain to his manager and have him reimburse you for the damage.

 

Thanks. However I don't have access to a tac welder. Right now the car is in my garage, waiting for the rear brake job. I really don't want to tow the car to a shop.

Will drilling out the wheel stud work?? I already bought another stud, I thought about threading it in the open end and using it to loosen the lug (kinda like using 2 nuts to loosen a bolt). But I couldn't get it to start threading.

 

you can drill it off and leave a lot of thread to use another lugnut in the meantime, but you should replace the lugstud asap. drill at the threads. right down the space between the lugstud and lugnut. this will free up some space to loosen up the lugnut, you may not need to drill all the way down the lugnuts depth. I did this on an axle nut that would NOT come off, worked like a charm.

good luck bro.

 

Do you mean to use a very small drill bit and drill BETWEEN the threads of the lug stud and the threads of the lugnut?? I think that's what you mean, am I right??