re: Swollen lug nuts

I got bit by this one just yesterday on the way back from a scout campout to watch the eclipse. We were on Hwy 6, which just a few miles west in Nevada is the "loneliest road in America". Drove over miles and miles of gravel road with light 4 wheeling over the weekend. Turn onto the pavement and less than 2 miles down the road, one of my brand new tires start to go down. Fortunately, our most solid and well prepared assistant Scoutmaster was right behind me. Of course, my emergency truck box was buried under all of our camping gear....

We were going to patch the puncture while the tire was still on the truck, but couldn't quite get the right angle on it. We discovered the stock lug wrench wouldn't fit, but I keep a breaker bar and a set of deep sockets in the truck. The 7/8" was a wee bit snug and the 1" was too big. We ended up having to hammer each lug out of the socket after we got it off. 5 of the 6 punched through the soft chrome on the top of lug nut in the process. In the process I managed to put the flat head into the ring finger on my left hand pretty good. We got things patched and inflated enough with my ryobi hand inflator to get to the closest town (30 miles away) to get filled up at the gas station. The couple of scouts we had with us were super helpful.

Long story short, I've got a trip to o'rileys later this week to get them replaced. Moral of the story: It's easier to replace these in the drive way than on the side of the road...