What is the spike end for on a ford wheel nut wrench?

[GeoffGeoff]

[Gaskell71]

For hubcap removal I suspect

[nicam49]

Wots a hubcap, grandad?... 🙂

[unofix]

Its for cars that have wheel bolts instead of wheel nuts. When you fit a wheel on a hub that does not have the studs sticking out it is difficult to line the wheel up with the holes for the bolts. You put the spike end through the hole in the wheel to help line it up. Thankfully these days Ford have gone back to using nuts which makes the process of putting a wheel back on the hub simpler.

[Mark M]

Page 226 of the handbook says it's for removing the hubcap / hub cover / wheeltrim.

 

Cars that have wheel bolts usually have a brassy/gold coloured rod with a threaded end that you would wind into the hub to hang the wheel on when refitting.

[unofix]

Hi Mark, I did for many years have a number of Ford Orions, they all used wheel bolts and did not have any means of locating the wheel on the hub. I have seen on other manufactures models a small peg on the hub to help in locating the wheel but never on any of the Fords I've owned with wheel bolts.

Regarding removal of hub caps (thats a blast from the past) again all of the wheel nut wrenches that I've seen and used to remove hub caps have had a flat end rather like a large screwdriver (not a spike) that fitted in to a small indentation in the wheel just under the edge of the hub cap.

Which handbook are you looking at please?

[Mark M]

On 4/4/2021 at 10:43 PM, unofix said:

Which handbook are you looking at please?

The Ford owners manual that came with the car.

 

There is an online copy of the mk4.5 version at - https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/catalog/owner_guides/ENUSA_CG3536_MND_og_201204.pdf where it's on page 232