I have an old bike I need to repair (including flat tyres!) Unfortunately it has rounded nuts on it and can't seem to unscrew them.
Is there an easy non expensive way to remove them without damaging them?
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Sign up to join this communityI have an old bike I need to repair (including flat tyres!) Unfortunately it has rounded nuts on it and can't seem to unscrew them.
Is there an easy non expensive way to remove them without damaging them?
If the nuts are rounded they're stuffed. You want to remove the nuts but not damage other things, like axles.
I'll assume you're talking about axle nuts, but the same ideas apply to all nuts, bolts, and even screws to some extent.
So your nuts look something like this:
So all the easy fixes have failed. You're going to have to get brutal and your nuts probably won't survive the later options.
Sometimes heat can help, but its also able to cause worse damage. A steel fork should be fine, but its very easy to overheat aluminium. Carbon fibre will melt badly or worse it might overheat, loose strength, but look undamaged. This is the worst case, so only apply heat if your fork is steel, and there are no plastic parts in the area.
You can also use cold, sometimes, to "shrink" metals and break things loose. I've found that carefully-applied heat to be much more useful.
Once you get the wheel nuts off, consider replacing the axle and nuts anyway. A new axle with wheel nuts, two cones, and lock nuts shouldn't be too expensive.