Hub Bolt Help

[mehorto]

Hey guys. So I came home this afternoon from work and went to work on rotating my tires only to find out that one of the lug nuts on the front of my car wouldn't come out. It is not that it just wouldn't budge, the stupid thing is crossthreaded.... . So i'm looking through the factory service manual for my 2002 Nissan Maxima and it doesn't really specify a task unique to this problem, just the procedure for removing the front hub. Looks to me like I'm gonna end up taking the hub out of the wheel bearing just to get to the stupid hub bolts, is this right?? It also says

DISASSEMBLYNFAX0011CAUTION:When removing wheel hub or wheel bearing from knuckle,replace wheel bearing assembly (outer race, inner races andgrease seals) with a new one.

So am I understanding this right? just to replace one stupid hub bolt I have to replace the wheel bearing and all the other pieces that go with it!? That's gonna mean I have to take the assembly to a shop and have the new wheel bearing pressed back in too, right?

Does anyone have a better solution to this problem? Would it be worth my time to try to use a die to try to cut new threads once i get the old nut off? Thanks in advance for any advice fellas. Hope you're all having a good weekend!

[loystock]

Looks like torque wrench was not used the last time the wheels were installed.

You will need titanium drill bits and drill thru the lug nut and tip of the hub bolt. But you don't want to drill too deep that it may damage the wheel/rotor. If you have a caliper, measure how deep you have to drill without hitting the wheel surface, if possible. Mark the center of the lug nut and start drilling with a small bit. Be patient as it may take a while. Incrementally increase the size of the drill bit to enlarge the hole until the lug nut and tip of the hub bolt come off.

You will need a replacement hub bolt and better buy a new set of lug nuts to prevent this from recurring. And of course, torque the lug nuts to spec, 72-87 foot-pounds. I usually set my torque wrench to 80 foot-pounds and that takes care of all the lug nuts in all my cars.

Rod