Mounted wrong size wheels - they’re now permanently stuck to the car. Disaster [resolved]

[father_of_6]

Well, at least we know why there are thread marks on the inside of the bolt holes of the rims, M3-Hammer here hit the wheel at least 2 times too many before rotating it to knock it off.

View attachment 882599

Yeah, and he cut the third whack out of the video... the one that hit the battery pack.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

That's the back wheel and they likely didn't know how to release the parking brake.

At any rate, the car is going to need an alignment and possibly all new wheel bearings after this crude hammering and OP is lucky the hammer didn't hit the brakes or wheel rim. I'm not sure I'd be proudly posting this as an "achievement" on my Facebook page if I were them. A cheap Harbor Freight hydraulic puller would have effortlessly removed the wheels with no risk of damage to anything.

 

[jjrandorin]

I was just talking about "lack of drama"... lets not bring drama into it now that its basically over.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

Mods are never any fun.

 

[martyb126]

AC Auto = Wakefield Mass. @martyb126 stated location "MA".....

Yup. My car is now famous. That’s more than most here can say! Honestly, I was underwhelmed with how hard they had to hit it to get it off. I was prepared to see much scarier footage.

At least there is a video of them getting them off on that blurb.

Anyway @martyb126 I want to do two things here.

1. Echo everyone else who said "Glad you got them off, without what appears to be a bunch of damage to the vehicle".

Agreed. Bearings and alignment are all good. No issues with the car. The wheels are TBD. Bringing them to a wheel place soon for balancing and inspection. My next step was to cut them off, so if they’re not dead, I’m in a better place than I thought I’d be.

2. Thank you profusely for being a good sport about all this, rolling with all the suggestions, advice, jokes etc, and also coming back and posting a resolution.

At the end of the day, it’s just a car. Hopefully my mistake prevents someone else’s in the future. It was certainly an adventure. I’m glad we all got some entertainment out of this.

 

[CW from the OC]

The FB link is dead, bummer!

 

[dhanson865]

The FB link is dead, bummer!

It worked for me just now. Note links like that often require you log into FB to see the content.

 

[GregD60]

So glad you finally got them off with not too much more trouble. Looks like those wheels have the step in the bore to accommodate the Performance model.

Interesting thread. I just came across it. I'm pretty sure that the step in the wheel bores wasn't there before they were installed on Marty's car; they don't have a machined finish like you would expect in that case and the step is also not as deep as it would be if someone were to machine it. I think the step was press formed when the wheels were bolted down, resulting in an interference press fit. Since the aluminum of the wheel is much softer than the steel of the hub, it deformed to fit.

After being press formed and hammered off, I wouldn't trust those wheels to not break in normal use. They've been stressed way beyond what they were designed for. Time to recycle some aluminum.