Red Loctite - Removing Bolts, etc.

Are you insane? Loc-Tite on lug nuts?

Don't do it again.

That's what they make anti-seize for.

Oh, sorry, you didn't come here for abuse?

Why not just find someone with air-tools? Or a really long beaker bar?

-Ron

I think you need to find a new dealer.

Or..... go back to the dealer and tell him to get the lugnuts off.

Personally, I'd never use a thread locking compound on lugnuts.

Did someone troll you so bad you actually put locktite on your lugnuts?

Did you check your spoiler fluid and muffler bearings also?

Anyways, red locktite only needs a few hundred degrees to be rendered weak enough to be broken through normal means, you can accomplish this with an industrial heat gun. Or you could just pry out the plastic thing with a pocket knife and get back to using a propane torch. Just an FYI, you don't need to get things red hot, just somewhere around 250-300F or so, which is going to be difficult as your lugnuts are in contact with a giant heat sink called an aluminum rim.

If you get those off, you should probably chase your threads with a die. And then you should never do that again.

If I were going to use LocTite on lugs, I wouldn't go any stronger than #242. Anything heavier I would consider overkill (because you never know when you'll need to take a lug nut off!)

In this case, I'd get a torch with a pencil flame (propane is fine - you want to heat up the nut only, and having the very fine flame will give you more control and probably save your centre caps. Put the flame on the inside of the lug circle and point it outwards to direct heat away from the plastic mass - pop it off of you can...) or use a 1/2" drive breaker bar and 6-point socket - and about a 6-foot long pipe - to break the nut loose (you may not need the leverage to break the LocTite, but the long pipe will give you far more control.)

Stronger than #242 would make sense for the nuts to retain a wheel spacer - but for the wheel nuts, I wouldn't go any stronger than #242 (but I usually use never-seez anyhow, and haven't had any trouble at all. I have to threaten the wheel man when I go to get tyres, but they're getting used to me. Air impact tools are not allowed anywhere near my wheels!)

I put red loctite on things I will likely never have to remove. Lug nuts, no. Just a good 80 fp of torque will keep those babies on.

I have KNOWN about loctite for 40+ years. I used to sell it back in the 70's. I have never heard about putting it on lug nuts. Why?? Because it's crazy!! That's my personal opinion.

I usually put them on dry and have never had a problem with them loosening up. REMEMBERING to torque them all is my only problem now.

FWIW, Jon, I snapped off 2 studs on my Dodge 2500 4wd front hubs when some knucklehead crossthreaded the lugnuts and just hammered them down with an air wrench, with only about 4' of leverage. They're a little bigger than the 1/2"x20 studs on a stock XJ.

I'm not sure if there's a solvent that works on LocTite, but if there is I'd use it to remove it from the studs along with a wire brush and even consider running a die over them. I'd also replace all of the lug nuts with new. After years of going on and off they can lose some of their holding power. Thread a new lug nut on and you'll see that it's a little tighter and in my opinion will hold better.

The reason that I suggest making an effort to remove all of the thread locker is that I'd be concerned that any remaining will be softened with brake heat and re-lock the lug nuts to the studs.

Get a breaker bar, pop the lugs off like normal ... I use red loctite on my wheel adapter lugs (as directed by spydertrax). I had no problem removing them when I did my Rear Disk swap. Above the 1/2" mark it works more like Blue anyway.

Sorry no ideas for how to surgically apply heat. Have you tried 3 ft leverage? I've used red loctite on wheel spacer lugs plus 80 ft-lbs. No trouble taking those off when replacing shafts.

Red loctite isn't steel or a hardcore epoxie... Read a little and It's break away torque is only 275 inch lbs. red loctite is hard but brittle. Doin a little reading it states you need over 300 degrees to effect it and localized heating... If it were me and I wanted those wheel spacers I'd hammer them off with an impact

http://thirdshift.nu/portfolio/v3/pdf/mro_catalog.pdf

What's funny is your using loctite to keep your lugs on... I'm using nikál anti sieze on mine so they come off easy I want to have ease of removal while I'm on the trail!

Generally I only use the silver Loc-cease on lug nut studs....
According to the LOCTITE website the red 271 threadlocker requires temperatures of 500* to soften.
Here is a YouTube video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9zFgB8lTNM

RAVC1 said:

Ron,

Do you read much or, merely respond? I have known of using Loctite for securing lugnuts for years. If you ever used a set of wheel spacers you have two choices:

1 - Check the spacer lugnut torque frequently - as in every other day.

3 - Use Loctite. I usually use Loctite blue. However, as I stated I was recently told red is better on lugnuts under these circumstance by a 4x4 dealer with decades of experience. I suspect the dealer knows more than I. How about you?

I suggest you read more, comment less as this is the foundation of education.

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Rick,

Loctite is a product that most service people use sparingly.
It is not a substitute for proper torquing of nuts or bolts, in fact, it can interfere with that process and result in over torquing the bolt or nut and failure of the fastener. It is definitly not recomended for items you need to service on a regular basis, like lug nuts. There are fasteners where Loctite is specified, and one of those few fasteners are drive gear bolts inside the axle. The torque spec for those fasteners includes the use of Loctite.

You made no mention of said spacers in your original post. And I really doubt that some person told you to put Loctite on the wheel lugs of your vehicle. If you are using an adapter, they may have mentioned putting it on the lugs which fasten the adapter on, but not the wheel ones.

If you use the correct fastner in the right application, and the right torque, you do not need to check your torque every few days. If the fastener keeps loosening, then one needs to find out why this is happening and not bandaid the problem by use of a product that glues the fastener in place. Sometimes the problem is not that the fastener is loosening, but that the material it is fastening is changing thickness.

If those wheel adapters are aluminum or pot metal, I would either replace them with steel versions to avoid needing to re-check torque values so often, and to improve piece of mind in Off-Road applications, or buy the right wheels for the vehicle.

The bottom line is:
If someone did tell you to put Loctite on your wheel lugs, they were just plain wrong. Use an anti-seize compound (sparingly) on the lug nuts to prevent metal to metal seizure issues and easy lug removal.

The second bottom line is:
When you come here and ask a question based on bad advice and don't bother to solve the problem yourself, you have reduced yourself to bottom of the nOOb pile. I would expect some good natured abuse. It's all good.

Good luck with your wheels

Go by a tire shop and don't tell them about the lock tight. A good impact will break them loose. If you tell them they won't touch it. In the future, only use lock tight on lug nuts that hold on a wheel spacer.

Guys must be running cheap wheel spacers these days. I ran them for years and years on my old jeep. I'd tighten them. Drive for 50 miles, retighten and never have to touch them again.

Next time just weld the spacers on! Then they'll never come off.

RAVC1 said:

I chose to listen the the advice of others recently while I was transferring the lift from my 97 to my 88 Xj. I used Loctite red on my lugnuts and now I need to apply heat to remove the lugnuts...and hopefully, not melt my plastic center caps from the 97 Xj OE 5-spoke steel wheels.

Any advice on how to solve this problem? I figured it best to ask for a known solution rather than hack up my wheels.

Thanks,

Rick

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Well that will learn yah. Did you read the label on the red loctite before using it? Red is for stuff you use if you never/do not want to take back off. You might get away with a heat gun on high but i doubt it. You may be loosing your center caps over it. Might get them a little warm at least and use a good shop 1/2" impact to get them off.

RAVC1 said:

Ron,

Do you read much or, merely respond? I have known of using Loctite for securing lugnuts for years. If you ever used a set of wheel spacers you have two choices:
Ah so you blame him for your lack of info... So do you post much. Supply the info that we need and you may get better answers. No where in your first post did you say anything about spacers.

Which brings up a question? If you put the loctite on the lug nuts, that to me mens you used a cheap auto-zone set of spacers(sandwiches between the rim and rim mounting surface on the jeep) and not the safer bolt on style spacer.

1 - Check the spacer lugnut torque frequently - as in every other day.
Get the right ones and do it right and people go years with out worrying about it after the first initial re-torque.

3 - Use Loctite. I usually use Loctite blue. However, as I stated I was recently told red is better on lugnuts under these circumstance by a 4x4 dealer with decades of experience. I suspect the dealer knows more than I. How about you? In this case the dealer is a smuck......What place was that so we will all know not to go there as we know more then them. I can reiterate my statement above about red loctite but you already read it once.

I suggest you read more, comment less as this is the foundation of education.
He read your miss amount of info for what you where really asking just fine. You are trash talking someone about info that you added in your response to him. The pertinent info we needed was not in your original post. And the foundation of education starts with the correct amount of facts needed for a particular situation.

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My responses are in blue by the way...

Hey I just had a random thought what your gonna wanna do is drive to the top of a long steep road... Then ride your brakes all the way down until you can start to smell the brakes really well, by that time they should be hot enough...then break your lugs loose while you've heated everything and take the spacers off wait for it to cool and drive home :gee:

ChiXJeff said:

FWIW, Jon, I snapped off 2 studs on my Dodge 2500 4wd front hubs when some knucklehead crossthreaded the lugnuts and just hammered them down with an air wrench, with only about 4' of leverage. They're a little bigger than the 1/2"x20 studs on a stock XJ.

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Yah - and replacing lug studs gets irritating. Which is why I have forbidden the use of air tools on my wheels - it's too damned easy to screw it up.

Then, either I've got work to do replacing the studs, or I have to go to the time and trouble of making them do it.

I don't care about the "torque sticks" they've got - you don't have the feel for something going wrong when you use air tools that you have when working by hand!