Wheel won't come off, pilot is stuck on hub....

[bry]

This is funny stuff. I rotated tires front to back, and now the front passenger wheel is stuck. The center hole/pilot seems to be a little smaller than the rear wheel. Inspection of the front hub shows previous owner had struck the hub pilot with a hammer which flared it slightly (during axle change I'm guessing). This was enough to totally stick the wheel.

With the car jacked up, I slid under and gave the tire a good kick, but it wouldn't budge. So, instead of kicking and beating the tire, I decided to do things the easy way. I loosened all 5 lug nuts, leaving about an 1/8" gap between the seat and nut. With the weight of the car on the wheels, i grabbed the top of the wheel and pulled with all my body weight. On the second pull, it popped loose, no problema....

Of course I followed up by grinding/filing off the flared area. Problem solved....

[mike-tracy]

Nice. I try to spray that area with lube when I remember, since I've experienced that too. The worst is if there's no brake rotors on the car, the wheels are almost impossible to take off after sitting a couple months.

[jefferson]

Use a little never seize around it and you won't have any problems the next time you go to take off the wheels.

Jeff