But.....when undoing the first locking wheel nut to remove the road wheel, I felt a sudden crunch as the pins inside the 20 year old locking wheel nut tool sheared off. Now leaving me with four wheels securely locked to the car, with no way of removing them!!
Not to fear, for TMF is here!!!
Having read various previous threads here on how to overcome this precise dilemma, I had a number of tricks up my sleeve. 
First out came the mole grips to try and get a grip of the outside of the nut.... Failed!!... The locking nuts are manufactured with an outer ring that will simply spin if you try and attach anything to it. Next out came the angle grinder to cut the outer ring away, (so that I could get the mole grips onto the nut itself).....Failed!!.... No matter how tight I applied the grips, they came just away when I tried to turn the nut. Next I attempted to grind/file a flat on each side of the nut to allow an adjustable spanner to be clamped on to the nut......Failed!!.... The locking nut is essentially hollow, so attempting to grind a flat, means that you are soon grinding through to thin air!!.... Last resort then..... out comes the welder in an attempt to weld an old spanner onto the end of the nut.... Failed again!! For some reason, despite many attempts on various settings, I couldn't get any weld penetration into the nut.... maybe the locking nuts aren't made of steel... who knows?? But four hours later, all I had managed to achieve was one very mangled and scorched locking wheel nut, that was still locked firmly in place!!
So down to ATS we go, to ask the tyre monkeys there how they overcome this sort of problem. They don't!! So they direct me to a garage on the other side of town where they themselves send cars with such problems to. On arrival there, the bloke laughs at my handy work and produces what is basically a large glorified stud extractor. Fifteen minutes later he had the three locking nuts off that I hadn't tampered with, followed by a further 45 minutes to remove the remains of the "mullered" nut that I had spent the last 4 hours destroying. He then presents me with a £50 bill!!
So to sum up.... I wasted an entire afternoon, am now £50 worse off, have a set of alloys that anyone can now easily steal, (meaning I have to now to buy a new set of locking wheel nuts) and still have a patch of exposed metal/untreated rust on the end of one of my sills!!
All in all, a productive afternoons work!!
Edited by AVV IT, 03 December 2011 - 07:44 PM.
