Seized Budd lugnuts

Wrap a chain around the breaker bar and hook into your engine crane. 4000# lifting up 3' off the nut...12,000 ft lbs of force. As long as your breaker bar and cheater pipe can take it, it'll break it loose. I've never had it NOT work!

 

With all 40 not turning, are you sure you didn't reverse direction per side? I would think that at least one would bust loose.

 

Left hand lugs or nuts in general are supposed to be identified with a grove in the hex face:

I got plenty of 1/2" impacts but never seen one that could compete with even a mediocre 3/4" let alone 1". What do you got? The flex alone in 1/2" tools cannot compete.

I have seen many a lugs stuck on where a 6' cheater wouldn't do it.

I always run a impact the proper way for a few seconds, the improper way for a few seconds and repeat for a minute or so. It is amazing how often that works to break any nut. Many a time I have had a mechanic complaint that the impact will not move a nut or bolt. I usually is an embarrassment when I go use their impact with that technique to remove a bolt they claim was frozen. But you cannot always get all the bolts doing that. Their is always going to be a tough one out there.

 

I made sure I was going the right way. I tried running the gun back and forth. No luck. I wrench for a living and deal with seized hardware all the time. This is definitely a first for me lol. I'm thinking the best option at this point is to simply torch a notch into each nut down to the stud and hopefully they'll come loose.

My 1/2" is a Mac rated at 1,250 ft lbs. I've taken off cutting edges and even track shoes on smaller excavators with it. Its a torquey little gun that's for sure.

 

I've got a 1/2" Chicago Pneumatic with a 1200 ft lb "breakaway" torque, 940 ft lbs "working" torque in reverse, and just shy of 600 ft lb forward. I've never had it successfully remove a lug nut in either direction even though its "reverse" rating exceeds what you'd THINK would get the job done. Have a NAPA 3/4" gun rated in that same range, and could usually break most of them loose with that, but would have to resort to a 40" breaker bar or the T-slide/3' cheater/engine crane to get the last few. Finally got tired of struggling every time I messed with tires, and upgraded to the 2000 ft lb 1" gun and other than that one time a knucklehead at a tire shop pounded the lugs on, it's always broken them free.

Bigger gun, even with the same rating, will do bigger jobs easier. Kinda like a 1990 Suburban with a 190 hp 350ci V8 vs a 2000 Blazer with a 190 hp 262ci V6 trying to pull the same trailer. Same rated power, but the Suburban just handles the job better.

 

If you have some time get a can of deep creep and spray some on the lugs. That stuff is amazing what it will loosen up.

 

Have you tried wax yet?

 

Heating them nuts cherry red.....wouldnt that expand the metal making it even more difficult to break

Liquid Wrench ? Maybe......

Cutting torch......problem solved

 

Agreed, you only want to heat them up a few hundred degrees. Cherry red may have fused the threads like a weld.

 

Man you get the nuts off, just wait till you break the outer studs off. The stainless aren't worth it in my mind, but I'd probably pull the axle and hub, and torch the lugs from the inside. On my old truck we torched off some outer studs without hurting the aluminum wheels. Patience is a virtue.