Seized Budd lugnuts

I just wanted to try and save the fancy stainless steel rim covers if possible. I think that ship is sailing though.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone. I've got to head back to work so I'm going to give it another shot in a week or so.

 

You might be able to cut them as close to flush with a portable bandsaw then use a small pea grinder with one of those mild abrasive wheels to buff off what is left this way the stainless steel doesn't get damaged?

 

You need a bigger gun. I have a 2000 ft lb impact I usually use for wheel removal, and after having a tire repaired on the road where a "tech" used their big gun to beat the nuts on, I had to go to my local tire shop and have them use their gun to break them loose and PROPERLY snug them up so I could go home and change my tires. Depending upon who put them on, what tools they had available, and their level of incompetence, you may need 2500-3000 ft lbs on the gun to break 'em loose...ESPECIALLY if they've been on there for a while.

 

Are you sure you are getting the volume of air needed for your impact....I've had that happen before...

 

I happen to like them. I've punctured a steer tire at a job site, and rolled the inside drive up onto a block of wood. Jack up the leaking steer tire and remove it, then remove the outside drive tire and move it up onto the steer. Got the load dumped off and me to a tire shop to have a new steer mounted and the drive tire moved back to where it belonged. Couldn't have done that with spokes or hub-piloted wheels unless I carried a second jack.

One other trick I used to use before I bought my 1" gun was to use a 3/4" T-slide (Craftsman...lifetime warranty), a 36" pipe slipped over the handle, a chain wrapped around the pipe, and hooked into my 2-ton engine crane to break loose anything I couldn't budge with my 900 ft lb 3/4" gun or my 40" breaker bar. Of course by the time I was done, the T-slide looked more like a J-slide, at which point I'd walk into Sears and drop it on their counter. When they picked their jaw up off the floor, they'd go get me another T-slide and I'd be ready for the next time.

 

Are you going the right direction ?

 

99% of the time my little 1/2" takes off wheel nuts no problem. Just have never come across 40 nuts that are that seized up so bad that heat and a big gun couldn't handle. Those nuts have probably been on there for at least 6 years lol.

 

1" airline, no extension on the gun. I've even tried a breaker bar with a 6' pipe on the end, no dice.

 

It takes a lot of heat to destroy stainless steel, surely you wouldn't hurt it too bad