I told my dad that I would help him do brake pads/rotors on my mom's Honda Accord. I threw some tools in the back of the van and drove around to his house. I wanted to also rotate my tires while I was working. Should be a simple thing right? Ha.

Popped the wheel center caps off and noticed that the rear wheel is missing a lug nut. Closer inspection revealed a stud that was stripped. I've only had the van about 3 months and have not had the rear wheels off.

Started taking it apart and ended up getting the Haynes repair manual out. Took looking at a few of the pictures before I could figure out how to get the rear hub off. Once off, a couple of pieces of wood and a few whacks of the hammer and I had the stud off. Quick trip to Auto Zone got me a new stud and lug nut.

That's where the easy quit. lol

I didn't have anything strong enough to push the new stud back in. The 6" C-clamp I had actually started bending and still wasn't getting it in.

Off to the store to find something that would do the job.

Ended up buying a 6 ton press from Harbor Freight. It's not the best quality but I thought it would get the job done. $89 later I'm headed home with a box of cheap Chinese metal. lol

Took a while to put it all together but only took about 30 seconds to get it all lined up and pressed in.

Another 30-40 minutes and I had it all buttoned up and then another 8 minutes later, I had the passenger side tires rotated.

Anyways, feels good to have gone ahead and fixed it even though it was probably fine with just 4 studs/lugs. And my 20 minute tire rotation took the better part of the day.

I did forget to reattach the parking brake cable so I guess I'll be jacking it back up tomorrow to hook that back up.

 

Been there...
A simple way to seat the new stud is get an open wheel nut and some washers to pull the stud into position before replacing the wheel. It takes very little effort and time to do it that way.