On 31/07/2018 17:54, NY wrote:


The opposite of this is the flat-blade "screw head" on my old Peugeot
306 for securing the spare wheel cage to the underside of the boot. Now
anyone with an ounce of common sense would make the head of this long
bolt hexagonal, of the same size as the wheelnuts. But no, Peugeot do it
differently. They put a very broad half-cylindrical notch in a round
head, and then instruct you to use the flattened end of the wheelbrace
as a makeshift "screwdriver". It doesn't work well. When I had a
puncture, the threads of the bolt had rusted to the nut on the cage, and
even putting all my weight on the wheelbrace to hold the "blade" into
the notch, I couldn't exert enough torque to shift the rusted nut
without the blade jumping out of the notch.

I actually had to call out the RAC (oh, the embarrassment, just for a
flat tyre) - simply to get the cage undone. We tried WD40, axle grease,
heat (being careful to shield the tyre of the spare wheel) and
eventually got it to move. After that, changing the wheel was a
five-minute doddle.

Learning by my mistake, I got into the habit of spraying WD40 over the
thread every few weeks, and sometimes took the bolt right out and
greased it liberally. I wasn't risking a repeat performance :-)

Similar performance on Suzuki Carry van, even though that is a hex bolt
the same as wheel nuts. IIRC I also put a length of hosepipe over the
exposed threads to keep the mud off in future, after cleaning and
greasing them liberally.