Fixing a broken “faux lug” and CRV maintenance…

Ticking off items on my to do list while Sharon is in North Carolina, it was time to take care of our 2011 Honda CRV. It was due for an oil change and now that we are at 120,000 miles, it it is time to also replace the plugs.

Anytime I do an oil change I always worry about the oil plug either being seized or stripping. Since I did our last oil change I wasn’t too worried about it being seized up. I carry an oil change pan for oil storage with us just for this case. A tip for those who want to carry one of these I store ours just on top of the cage over the on-board propane tank. That way it can’t mess anything up. Then I dispose of the used oil when I find a recycling center.

Thankfully the oil change was straight forward and the plugs were a snap to replace as well once I figured out how to detach the plastic plugs which snap into the spark plug holders.Google saved the day again. With new plugs and our regular oil changes, hopefully we will have another 100,000 trouble free miles.

Since my recent tasks were accomplished without any duress I decided to tackle a problem we have had with one of the faux lug nuts (see top photo) that fell off of our simulated wheels. I read the internet once again and did come across a fellow who seemed to have a good idea on how to reattach one of them.

For clarification, the faux wheels have a spring steel insert in the faux lug with a lip all around it making it impossible to reattach.  This left us with no alternative but to buy a new simulated wheel for way more than I want to spend for a cosmetic piece.

Therefore after my reading I took my Dremel with a flat grinder which could grind steel and I carefully ground away about half an inch of the lip on the spring steel insert. I did it in such a way as to create a “screw” out of the insert. The picture  above illustrates what I mean (note the cut that created the “screw thread” on the insert). I took off a bit more than in the picture since I wasn't able to reattach it on my first try.

Once ground even with the faux lug, I took our faux lug removal tool (see the “T” tool in the picture) and I inserted the hacked faux lug in one end and with pressure applied at the other end I slowly kept turning the faux lug tool hoping that the edge I cut into the spring loaded steel would catch and would “screw” on. After grinding a bit more and cleaning up the edges, I tried again with lots of grunting and cursing when it finally magically caught the edge and “screwed” on!

This whole process took about an hour but was well worth it and now our simulated wheel has all its faux lugs! Now onto the next project…

NOTE:  While Sharon is in North Carolina I am currently at Angler’s Retreat in Rockport Texas until  May 12th…