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**PLEASE HELP** lost unique lug key for bolt on wheel spacers
hey all.. so i've found myself in a rather troubling predicament and haven't the faintest idea what to do. i've gone into depth with as much information as i could and will include TL;DR cliffs at the bottom for those who are (understandably) unwilling to read the wall of text.
i have a 2006 evo ix not the mr or the rs, just the standard one. have had it for ~13 years, though it was parked / stored for probably 2ish of those. love it even tho i don't treat it as well as i should.
years ago (2007 ish) i was gifted a set of gramlight wheels by a then-friend and then-business partner (we've since had a falling out due to him scamming both me and my now-dead-father for thousands of dollars. out of touch with him for ~7 years) which couldn't clear the calipers on my car as they were originally for his mitsubishi eclipse GSX. i got some bolt on wheel spacers from a friend of his' shop (which is also now out of business so i'm unable to contact them about which products they were carrying in 2007, if they even had those records). they installed them and what i'm finding out the hardest way possible that is different about these spacers is, the lugs they came with in order to attach the spacer to my wheel aren't actual typical lug nuts. they're like this special flattened version of it with 4 holes drilled into the middle of them (forming a square if you were to "connect the dots" with a sharpie while looking at it) and the kit came with a special key, much the same as the wheel lock i have on one lug. only this key was simply flat and fitted with 4 small protruding pegs in order to insert them into the 4 small drilled holes of the lug. functions same as any other wheel lock but w the strange flat surface w holes drilled in and the key only having pegs etc.
anyways, i curbed one of the wheels a few years later and ended up jut putting the stocks back on but just bolted them to the spacers as i intended to either repair or replace the gramligth wheel. upon being unable to do either (as they were a gift, couldn't find the offset of the specific set i had and former owner had forgotten) i simply left the stocks attached to the spacer as they were admittedly out of laziness.
fast forward a few more years, to about 4.5ish years ago. when having my tires or breaks changed (forget) i gave the tech the key for it to remove the spacers. he came back in and handed me the key again and said 'you dont have any spacers on your car idk what this is for'. he lead me to believe that they had been stolen during my last break/rotor change (years before that particular date) and that they weren't on my car at all. frustrated but without options i just chalked it up to having been scammed and forgot about them. i suppose i became careless with the key to install/remove them after this as i had been lead to believe they were in fact, not on my car anymore.
i usually just left it in the glove compartment along with the stock wheel lock lugnut. that is the last place i can remember ever seeing it, but remember it being there for years.
yesterday i went in to replace a flat tire as well as a balding tire, and was informed that my pads were toast and the rotors were actually pretty bad and in need of replacing. kind of scary to think about as i had recently made 4 trips back and forth to vegas for work, and i only make the drive alone at night to avoid heat and traffic etc. so i say fk it just replace all.
this is where the issue arises.
he tells me he can't do the front because of these spacers and couldn't find the key for them anywwhere inside my vehicle and that he and his employees had looked thoroughly. i myself have basically taken the car apart looking for it since then and have been unsuccessful. he says he has never seen a key like the one required to unscrew these lugs nor ever seen lugs like these to beginwith.
i have called 5 different neighboring tire/wheel shops around in an attempt to find a solution, unsuccessful for the last 3 hours and have wassted a bunch of time.
i'm currently literally googling "bolt on wheel spacers" and looking through products trying to find anything similar to my kit. there are literally countless manufacturers and i haven't come across any yet that closely resemble mine. i'm thinking they were some obscure brand that 'friend of friend's shop was carrying cause they were cheap or they had a good connection on pricing for them.
this is obviously really troublesome as something so small seems to have put my (only) car out of commision and my wife needs hers to commute daily.
please help. i have no idea what to do.
they look like typical bolt on spacers nothing especially unique about them themselves, however the lugs to fix them to the car are quite unique. they're flat with 4 machine drilled holes on their face, which would form a square if you were to 'connect the dot' with a sharpie. accompanying these lugs was a specific lugnut key / adapter which was flat and only had 4 protruding pegs which insert into the lugs which fasten the spacer to the car.
^---description of key and lug---^
"IT'S TOO LONG; I DIDN'T READ IT" cliffnotes:
-12 year old bolt on wheel spacers attached to the car
-require special key to install/remove
-have lost said key
-unable to contact anyone involved with their purchase or installation (former friend + the now closed shop his friend used to own)
-need to change rotors badly but impeded by these spacers
-no way to remove spacers without the special required key to install/remove them
-completely unsure of the manufacturer to contact for a replacement key
-unique nature of the key+lug combo leaves me completely unaware of how to remove the spacers
It's hard to visualize what it looks like without a picture, but have you thought about hammering on a socket slightly smaller than the body of the lug and removing it off the spacer? Worked for me when the previous owner of my car did not include the wheel lock key.
you're def right i was trying to be descriptive but realize it's just gonna be so much harder to describe.. will go downstairs now and remove a tire and snap a photo of it to give a better picture
sorry for the delay.. i dont have a floor jack and can be pretty slow about it which is why i dont do it often beyond changing my oil and usually jut pay to have it done at a shop out of convenience.
Last edited by whiterice1; Jul 16, 2019 at 01:02 PM.
Measure the distance between the two holes across from the stud. Stud is an m12 so its probably around 14mm if I had to guess.
Then start poking around on Amazon for angle grinder wrenches to see one that has the right dimensions.
Now it might be hard to get enough torque on it but I bet you might be able to get away with something like this and a cheater bar if it doesnt bend/ snap prior.
Looks like here is a universal one. Its probably more flimsy but who knows may be just enough to work.
I agree with heel2toe. If that doesn't work, you can always start buying lock nut socket sets and see if any of them fit. If not, return it and move on to the next. Those nuts look like they have been hammered with a flat head screw driver. These are out there, but very uncommon.
Oh those locknut sockets would work better. I forgot what those were called, haha! But once again start off by getting some measurements and then from there you should be able to source a proper tool or have one made. This is where having a cutoff wheel and a welder and some creativity comes in handy. But I think you should be able to source something that'll do the trick.
you all are ****ing amazing thank you thank you thank you so much . these are exactly what the key looked like.
also, idk why i didn't think about it but you're so so right they fkn hammered them back in w the screwdriver. i was wondering how they had been 'stripped' so much or wahtever. it must have been the guy who said they weren't even on the car at all or, hopefully not the case, the shop before did it and he was unable to remove them so just lied about them not even being on the car at all.
Jul 16, 2019, 11:17 AM
