Well I bought some new tires, Michelin LTX A/T which are a great on/off road tire. The first tire shop (Sears) told me they wouldn't do it because I have bad lugnuts and they don't think they can torque them down. I tried explaining that it is just a poorly designed lugnuts and that it is just a cap on there and that if you use the proper socket you can toque them down with no problem. So the next day I decided to take the wheels off myself and bring them to another shop. Well I was only able to get one wheel off. The rest were stuck on like I have never seen before. It turns out the PO wasn't very big on rotating tires. I used up of my bag of tricks and still couldn't get it. I took it to a different shop and after two hours they told me that they were having problems and I should go home. Two hours later they call me and say they got one more off. today they called and said they had a guy coming in on Monday that had some ideas and he would give it a try. They said these were the softest rims they have ever seen and that they were having a hard time not damaging them. I'm not overly concerned about the rims because the chrome is pealing and they are in pretty poor shape. I am searching for a good used set of wheels that I can put on.

Moral of the story: If you haven't had your wheels off recently, do it NOW and while you have them off coat the hub with some anti-seize. I usually pull my wheels every 6 months.

 

This seems to be a common problem with the P38. On other forums I see a lot of people having major problems getting off their rims because they are corroded to the hub.

From what the shop is saying, I would suspect they may have really damaged a rim and are using their "softness" as an excuse.

 

I've had this happen 100's of times

Take all the lug nuts off.

Put on back on part way.

Grab a large dead blow hammer and beat the Hell out of the inside of the rim, Spin the wheel and hit it in different places. So you do not bind the wheel up on the hub..

Eventually it will come loose, Kicking the tire on the outside work well.. Turn your back to the tire and kick it like a mule with your heal.. It may sound funny, but thats what you do when a Semi wheel won't come off.

And if neither of those work Get A Larger Hammer...

 

Well I tried all of those plus the bigger hammer. I soaked it with PB blaster twice a day for 3 days, heated it with a torch, put a couple lugnuts back on loosely and drove around in circles, you name it I tried it. The only thing I haven't tried at this point is driving it off a cliff, that just might do it.

 

You could have an aluminum + steel galvanic reaction where they have corroded themselves together. My old Saabs used to do this a lot. Plus they had lug bolts instead of nuts (like a VW), which made it worse.

One trick you may have tried already but I'll throw it out there. Back the lug nuts off most of the way, then quickly drop the car with the jack. The quicker the better. Sometimes this will pop things apart. I would start relatively low and work your way up if needed. This is definitely a last resort move and one I would be very careful about doing.

Another method is if you have an air chisel with a flat bit - flat meaning it has like a foot on the end of it. Work around the inside of the rim (by inside I mean the side that faces the axle, the inside lip if you will), perhaps stick some heavy cardboard in between the wheel an the chisel to try to minimize damage.

Usually a 5lb mini sledge beaten off the inside of the tire works (if you don't hit yourself in the face trying..lol)....

 

I'm sure thats exactly what I have going on. I tried everything I could to get them off so I sent it to a shop. It has been there 3 days and I finally got a call saying they got the last wheel off. As soon as I get it home I am going to take the wheels off and apply a whole bottle of anti-seize.

 

Now that they are off you can use a dremel to to ream out the inside of the rim to help stop this in the future. Do not remove a lot of material but just a good scuffing to remove all the imperfections, they will slide on and off real smooth next time. Antiseize will work as well so either way the next time will be easier.

 

I got the truck back and the tires are amazing!! I went with the 265/60 18. They really fill up the wheel well and look great. There is only very minor rubbing and I don't think I will have to much if any trimming. I am surprised the difference a larger set of tires can make.

 

Thats good news I was looking into using that same size here in a few weeks when I get this newest rover up and running..

 

They are great tires. I only heard them rub once on my 30 min commute and that was going over a large bump. I don't think I am going to have to adjust the steering locks at all. I manually put it down into highway mode and it rubbed a little doing tight corners but I don't expect to have an issue when I am running it in automatic (It would be impossible to make that tight of turn doing 55.)