Locking Wheel Nuts
 

My preference for a period of mainly offroad driving is to not have Locking Nuts on and thus reduce the risk of breakage/loss of adapters in sand etc(Good campfire story to be told on this one:clap:)!

So,the real question is:How likely are wheels to be lifted and nicked in the towns!

Of course it depends on the town & the country tony doh

where would you like to have your wheels stolen from ???:rofl:

I had to remove locking wheel nuts from a few cars once years back when they had been fitted to NGO cars sent to Iraq (you didn't want to have to search all over for the keys when trying to get moving again quickly!) so I took them to a mechanic on an industrial estate outside Nasariyah where I was working.

He agreed a fee of $1 per locking wheel nut removed, and then picked up a hammer and cold chisel, and took the lot off with one blow for each wheel - since then I've never bothered with locking wheel-nuts... hahaha!

Tony

I had to do the same some years back, purchased a new (old) car and found the all important part was missing. Used the same hi-tec tools. It was quite easy. In my view not worth replacing with a new set.

Hi Tony,

Some of the more modern locking wheel nuts have a rotating collar to prevent chiselling. The key has to locate in the rotating and fixed part of the nut before it will turn. Some wheels have deep recesses and it's difficult access the nuts with tools.

Clumsy mechanics with air guns can soon wear the slots in both the keys and the nuts giving a very sloppy fit. A blow-out on a narrow mountain track in the Atlas mountains during a thunderstorm is not the time to find out that you can't loosen the nuts!

Also it's worth knowing that tyre slime and sticky string both work. But not together. On punctures too large for slime to stop the leak, sticky string won't work as the slime acts as a lubricant and the string will be forced out after a very short distance.

The things you learn in the field...

Happy trails,

Peter