Whoops.

[AlfaSeltzer]

I dont have a press laying around.

Is this something I'm going to have to bring to a machine shop or would I be better off buying a new axle?

[tgulden]

I did this as well last fall on my '81 FI Spider 2000. I suspect that I failed to finish tightening the bolts on one side once I took the car down off the jack after redoing the rear brakes. It does leave one feeling a bit silly, sitting by the side of the road with only 3 wheels. My general mechanic was able to retap the holes for the same size bolt, though I am not sure exactly how he did that.

Another important thing, though, is that you will probably not be able to bolt the same wheel on without repairing it first. The taper on the bolt head needs to seat on and bind with the taper on the lug hole. If they don't match precisely, the wheel will come loose again. The wobbling period before the wheel came off has probably messed up the shape of the lug hole. I sent my wheel off to a shop in California someplace where they remachined the holes. Apparently, this needs to be done very precisely. They got it very nearly right -- it loosened up on me again after about a week, but I caught it in time and was able to tighten things up again. For the last 6 months, I have been running it somewhat overtorqued (standing on the stock lug wrench, but not bouncing on it) and it has been staying put.

I think I would have done better to have a steel insert put in to each of the holes, rather than just having them remachined. These guys claim to be able to do that:
http://wheelconnection.net/service.html
Not many wheel shops will mess with the lug holes at all.

[manoa matt]

The recommended procedure is to torque your lug nuts/bolts to the spec. Then recheck and tighten if necessary after 25 miles of driving. Checking them once a month dosen't hurt either. And always tighten the bolts/nuts in a star pattern, or alternating bolts directly across from each other.

[tgulden]

Good to know! Mine have been stable -- but have continued to make me nervous.

[JB]

Wow...I had this same problem on the same wheel. I purchased some bbs rims, removed the spacers ( not sure if I should have done that??), reused the old lugs (not sure if I should have done that either??) and it came off and actually hit the car beside me....big whoops! The guy pulled over with his wife and kid in the car...said no big deal I have an old chevy trunk I wrench on and understand....awesome guy. Anyway It did not appear to strip anything...just worked the lugs out. I figured the issue was the lugs were too short, since the bbs alloys are thicker, so I purchased new longer lugs. I drove for some time without issue (probably 30 hard miles) before they started to ease off again. Tighted them up got it home pulled them out put lock tight on them and torqued them down good...I have not driven for a while to see how it will work out. Interested to here how yours is working out.

[AlfaSeltzer]

Unfortunately I've decided to part the car out. When the wheel fell off one of the rocker panels came loose and revealed some horrible rust that I dont feel is worth fixing.

I knew when I got the car that I was going to have to patch or replace the floor boards but the engine bay and trunk were rust free. It looks like when the floors started rusting it creeped up to the sides of the car on the inside.

[mdrburchette]

What a shame. Will you be buying another one or are you throwing in the towel?