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Replaced a $9 wheel stud in my driveway and it somehow ate my whole Saturday
I figured this would be a 45 minute job, tops. My lug nut cross threaded on the front driver side of my 2013 Civic and I just wanted to swap the stud and get on with my weekend. Four and a half hours later I was still out there in the dark with a flashlight in my teeth. The problem was that the stud would not clear the knuckle, so I had to pull the hub off, and that meant fighting a rusty axle nut that laughed at my breaker bar. I soaked it in penetrating oil, rented a bigger bar from the auto parts store down on Cherry Street, and it still would not budge until my neighbor let me borrow his impact. Even then I pinched a brake line when I got in a hurry and had to run back out for a new one before sundown. I finally torqued everything down and took it around the block and it felt fine, but I was cooked. How do you all get axle nuts off without a compressor, or am I just buying an impact for next time?
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cooper.taylor2h ago
That 2013 Civic axle nut is staked from the factory, so no amount of penetrating oil or a longer bar will spin it until you knock that punch mark out of the groove on the nut. I fought the same one on my old Accord for an hour before I figured that out, and it came off with a 4 foot pipe once the stake was gone. So before you spend money on an impact, check the nut for a dent where it meets the axle, because if yours is staked the impact will just round it off.
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