[TR] Rim removal - Non TR question

Mark Hooper mhooper at digiscreen.ca
Tue Nov 25 20:07:36 MST 2008


Hi the list:

Alas my TR6 sits shivering in my unheated garage. So, I bring to the list a
non-TR question.

This week-end I performed the twice-annual ritual of the swapping of the snow
tires on my daily driver, a 2006 Cadillac DTS. The car has standard steel disc
brakes on all four points. The rims are chormed mags.

I ran into an odd problem seemingly rust related (on a totally un-rusted car).
I jacked up the first corner, undid all five wheel bolts on the first rim and
was then still completely unable to remove the rim by hand. Kicking very hard
did nothing at all, the rim seemed welded to the car. It took a 10-pound
sledge, a baulk of firewood and about 10 good hard whacks around the edge of
the rim to have it suddenly spring free, seemingly perfectly fine. The metal
surface (the centre of the brake disc) the rim was bolted to was indeed
lightly rusted, but not badly. I had to repeat the same performance for each
rim on the car.

I had a shop put on the snow rims when I got the car last fall, so I don't
know if it happened then too. I do not recall the problem when removing the
painted rims this spring, so I assume the issue with the fancy rims is the
surface rust of the bare metal brake disc binding onto the surface
micro-fissures of the chromed rim.

It strikes me that this is a bad thing. In the future if faced with a flat
tire on the side of the road, I would have to resort to weird tricks to free
the rim in order to bolt on the spare.

Is there a solution to this problem? It seems that oil or grease on the
surface would either evaporate from the brake heat, or much worse, just spread
out and cause the brakes to fail. I thought of rubbing a bit of candle wax on,
but it might end up the same way. POR might work, but I wondered if it would
just end up being the same as epoxying my rims to the car.

I definitely want a solution in the spring when it comes time to re-install
the summer rims. Any ideas out there?

Mark Hooper

1972 TR6
2006 DTS


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