Aaarrgghh - sheered wheel lug

Well work put paid to being able to spend any time whatsoever on the Interceptor over Christmas. A last minute rush project for a customer meant all Christmas in front of the laptop instead of being under the bonnet.

I finally got out into the garage 2 weekends ago to set about the steering. Started with the simple job of jacking the car up and removing the wheels. Well I though it would be simple until disaster struck and I sheered the top off one of the wheel lugs.

Now, I didn't think I was being particularly brutal with it, I was only using a socket on a breaker bar so I was very surprised this happened. Having spoken to few people and doing some research on the internet I think what has happened is that as the lug has been on and off the car many many times over the years and the threads on the stud have spread and finally it locked the lug the last time it was tightened.

As you can see, there is a fair amount of lug left inside the wheel.

Having mused over how to recover this situation for a number of hours I felt the only way really to get the wheel off was to drill the remaining parts of the lug out of the wheel.

Many hours of careful drilling (and drill bits!) later the remaining part of the lug loosened and I was able to remove it. Basically it took 2 weekends to remove the wheel....rubbish. Admittedly I got very frustrated at various times and headed back into the house to do something else to avoid causing more damage to the car in a fit of anger. Oh well, it's all character building and I can now get on with the real job of removing the rack.