Car wheels are sometimes the subject of theft. To protect them, some car owners install secrets. These are special nuts or bolts that can only be unscrewed with the included wrench. But what if such a key is broken or lost?
The solution to the problem depends on where the trouble happened. If this happened in the city, the situation is easier to resolve. You can go to a service station, go to the garage or buy a tool in a store. If the problem meets you on a deserted country road, there are not so many ways to solve the problem.
Take off the sekretki from the wheel in the city
If you did not order secrets from a foreign online store, but bought them at the nearest car market, try contacting a car dealer. Inexpensive Chinese-made kits usually have only a few secret combinations. After going through several packages, you can find the key you need.
If the lock breaks in a tire workshop, you may be offered to weld a bolt on the lock, and then unscrew it with a regular key. This is a very effective method, but it requires some care. There is a high risk of damaging the wheel rim. In addition, not every lock is weldable - it depends on the material from which it is made.
To remove the lock, you can use socket heads, the diameter of which is slightly smaller than the outer diameter of the nut. You will need a sledgehammer or heavy hammer to work. With its help, fill the head on the lock, and then unscrew it with a socket wrench. If you need to unscrew several locks, one head may not be enough for you - after such treatment, it may become unusable.
Another option is to use a chisel. Simply place the tip on the outer edge of the lock and hit the tool with a hammer in a counterclockwise direction. This method is inconvenient, time-consuming and does not always lead to a positive result.
You can try to make a copy of the original key. To do this, you need to take an impression from the secret using plasticine and contact an experienced machine operator with it. This method will incur the cost of paying the wizard, but the secrets and the key can be reused.
If your car's rims are stamped, you can use the gas key. Grip the lock with the key, lock it securely and turn it counterclockwise. If you want to use these nuts in the future, remember - using a gas wrench may render them unusable.
Remove secrets on a suburban highway
All of the above methods are good when a tool, specialty store or workshop is available to you. If you have a punctured wheel on a suburban highway, and you only have a wheel wrench and a jack from the tool, there are much fewer ways to solve the problem.
Stop the engine and apply the parking brake. Use a wheel wrench to tighten all wheel nuts as tight as possible, except for the lock. This is necessary to relieve tension from her. Try unscrewing the lock with your hands or pliers.
If it is stuck, unscrew all the nuts and raise the car with a jack. Knock on the lock with the key, then rock the wheel on the hub, loosening the nut. This must be done very carefully. Lower the car to the ground, screw the remaining nuts back on and tighten them all the way, pressing the disc against the hub as much as possible. The secret should then be unscrewed without much effort. If this does not happen, repeat these operations several times.
