[Whatcanithurt]

My 2018 spent the first year and a half of its life in Minneapolis. When it came time for a brake job I discovered the wheels, front and back were seized to the axles, and the duallys were seized to each other. The rear brakes were accessible by pulling the duallys AND the rear axle out together as one unit! Not acceptable!
If I needed to change a flat I would be toast. After much internet/ Youtube research. I bought a towing chain at Home Depot and used that with a bottle jack to pop each wheel off. The driver side rear inner wheel was the worst. A 4 ton bottle jack was barely adequate for the job. When it finally let go it sounded like a gunshot! When I got them off, I covered all points of contact between the wheels and the axles with anti-seize compound, so hopefully I will never have to do this again!
I'm attaching a pic of my wheel, and a link to the Youtube video that turned me on to this idea. If anyone else has this problem, this method sure beats hammering your wheels and tires with a sledge hammer!

Good Luck!

 

[going4speed]

That is insanity. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[GotDiesel?]

Seems like a better approach might be WD-40 and patience. That amount of force has the potential to distort the wheel. But, congratulations on getting them off.

 

[cosmicjumperalex]

I work in a dealership, most of the guys in the shop just get a really big rubber mallet or dead blow hammer and smack the **** out of the rim edge, I've never seen anyone need to resort to this type of technique. This idea with a bottle jack is some sketchy stuff. Anyone doing this in a proper shop would get booted for unsafe practices, this could bend or structurally damage the rim resulting in rim failure once the vehicle leaves. This practice would be a huge liability concern for a shop. Be ware, don't do this!!!!

 

[Whatcanithurt]

Seems like a better approach might be WD-40 and patience. That amount of force has the potential to distort the wheel. But, congratulations on getting them off.

I sprayed penetrating oil on it three times a day for two and a half weeks. How much more patience do you think would have been appropriate? I am open to any suggestions that might work, but beating a tire with a hammer seems likely to damage the tire. Beating the wheel also seems likely to damage a wheel.
Again, I am open to suggestions, what works that won't damage a wheel or a tire?
WD-40 didn't work for me. I went through 2 and a half cans worth before resorting to this. I also tried loosening the lug nuts, then driving around the block hitting pot holes- after WD-40.

 

[cosmicjumperalex]

I don't think its a matter of patience but a matter of technique.

Hitting the tire with a rubber mallet would not have enough energy to damage the tire or to get a really stuck rim off of the hub though most guys in the shop will begin with hitting the tire as its less painful on you hands and for most instances you don't end up needing to resort to hitting the rim edge.

Hitting the rim with a rubber mallet also does not have enough energy outright to damage a rim edge, but it does have the shocking sudden impacting force to get a stubborn rim off of a hub. I've done it many times and I have seen many techs do this as well. Now if you smacked it with a steel sledge hammer it would likely have the energy to actually damage the rim.

However the bottle jack can produce far greater energy than anything a human can swing. Remember the bottle jack is strong enough to lift the entire truck off the ground. Imagine trying to lift a truck off the ground with the impacting force of hitting the trucks frame from the bottom with a mallet? Does that provide a good example of how much energy difference were dealing with here?

The reason one would be able to get a rim off of the hub with just the energy produced by a mallet or dead blow hammer is because it is a sudden shocking impact, this breaks the connection between the two surfaces. This is also the reason that a bottle jack would need to be pumped to the point where you are putting a lot of force into the handle and when it finally gets the rim off of the hub it can jump off the hub like the video shows at the beginning, without a sudden shock to break the connection between the surfaces you end up building up a large amount of energy between the bottle jack and the hub. That large amount of energy built up between the hub and bottle jack is being transferred through the wheel rim, this is where you can bend and distort the rim, potentially ruining the structural soundness of the rim itself.

Next time, get a big ass mallet or preferably dead blow hammer and hit the rim edge on one side and then the other. After a few smacks you will get it loose, I do it all the time.

When you do eventually get the rim off, do yourself a favor. Smear some nickel or copper anti-seize on the mating surface between the rim and hub, don't forget the hub-centric portion of the mating surface, this is mostly where your getting hung up. The next time you go to remove your rims, they wont be so difficult to get off.

 

[BillsPaseo]

WD-40 is not penetrating fluid, it is a water displacing lubricant... something like PB Blaster would be much more effective. In a pinch, WD-40 is better than nothing, but a true penetrating fluid will do a much better job of freeing parts that have rusted together.

 

[Michael Ophus]

The WD-40 factory is in my hometown, It is a mixture of Kerosine and 10 weight Machine Oil. A chemical gives it that wd-40 smell. - In case someone wants to save some money and make their own.

 

[Whatcanithurt]

WD-40 is not penetrating fluid, it is a water displacing lubricant... something like PB Blaster would be much more effective. In a pinch, WD-40 is better than nothing, but a true penetrating fluid will do a much better job of freeing parts that have rusted together.

I sprayed each of these every day for two and a half weeks. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, one at night. I directed the spray between the wheels and around the point where the wheel and the axel hub touch. My mechanic, whom I trust,

had spent half a day already trying to get them apart. He had used a sledge, a pry bar, and some ridiculously long, 5 foot screwdriver with the hammer. He wanted to try loosening the lugs, then driving back and forth across the trolley tracks. I was afraid that might damage the studs, though I tried a less aggressive version of that myself.
Had I thought about a heavy rubber mallet, I probably would have tried that first. There is a commercially available tool specifically for separating Transit duallys (https://duallybuddy.com/buy-now). It puts all the pressure on one point of the wheel (and costs $289) and presses on the rotor to remove the inner wheel. The chain spreads the points of contact to four points, positioned symmetrically around the wheel. The chain method also presses on the axle hub rather than the outside edge of the rotor, which seems far less likely to cause damage. Either way- desperate times, desperate measures.
The chain worked for me with no discernable damage, and with the amount of anti-seize compound I covered everything with, this should be a one time job.
Thanks for the other recommendations.