Zod's Law..... No Locking Wheel Nut Key with my latest MG ZT-T 1.8t acquisition.

Really annoying when that happens.

Searched high and low in the car but no sign of it anywhere. Needing to remove all four wheels to check Brakes and Discs and fit refurbished Gridspoke Alloy Wheels with newish Tyres. I have a Blue Spot 19mm Extractor Socket and offered that up to the first Locking wheel Bolt. Good fit. :~

A few hours previously, I had sprayed all four Locking Wheel Bolt locations with In-Force Penetrating Fluid. Good stuff. Best I've ever used. All four Locking Bolts were very tight.

A light tap with a hammer enabled the Extractor Socket to make a better grip on the Bolt Head. No need to overdo it, just a light tap with the Hammer whilst holding the socket square over the Bolt. Then using a 1/2" drive Breaker Bar, used controlled weight on the Breaker Bar and felt the bolt let go.

Then undid the bolt about three full rotations. Then re-tightened the bolt so that the Socket's grip could be released from the bolt. No need to use too much strength here. Socket soon lost grip making removal easy.

Extractor Socket could be released from its firm grip along with loosened Locking Bolt :~

Repeated the process three more times and thus all four Locking Bolts were Extracted.

Then removed all four wheels in turn cleaning up the Hub-Wheel Interface and applying a light thin cover of Copper Grease. This to avoid having wheels corrosion welded to their hubs. Some of the Brake Discs were badly corroded on the unseen inner side. I could feel the grooves and rough areas, unlike the outer Disc surface seen in the picture. New discs on the cards. :~

This shows one of the newly refurbished Gridspoke Ally wheels fitted. :~

The originals wheels were not in bad shape cosmetically but the early stages of protective paint covering lifting away from the alloy metal were present on all four wheels. One quite bad bubbling... Here's the car with original Gridspoke Alloy Wheels when I drained the old engine oil and used neat Diesel Fuel to clear out any remaining old oil sludge from the engine. Running at fast idle for about ten minutes, that worked as this image shows now Black Diesel Fuel unlike the Crystal Clear Diesel Fuel put in the engine. :~

I have used this engine cleansing technique with Diesel Fuel before on my ZT 1.8t saloon. That time I drove the car for six gentle miles and then drained the Diesel Fuel :~

Note the original colour of the Diesel Fuel in the smaller container on the left in the picture.

Then put some fresh 10-40 Semi-synthetic in the engine and ran it for a few minutes more. Nice to see the new oil still crystal clear and clean on the Dipstick Index.

Here's the MG ZT-T 1.8t up on the drive on ramps during the oil changing sequence. The car still has the engine undertray in place restricting access for servicing. That's unusual... ... :~

Looks can be deceiving. This car was a real filthy shed when I first looked at it. However, closer hands on experience is revealing that the car has been maintained quite well although cosmetically, not so very well. Underneath all that filth is quite a nice car. If things carry on that way this ZT-T could well become my daily driver.

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Zod's Law..... No Locking Wheel Nut Key with my latest MG ZT-T 1.8t acquisition.