Thought I’d seen it all and then this. Trying to track down a persistent rattling sound over bumps with my 2018 F150. Sure sounded like it was coming from the front and the chassis ears weren’t helping so time to do a little deeper diving…and check things out while “in there”.
Of course the wheel is apparently welded to the hub. But the reason was not just corrosion around the hub centric ring. After some penetrating oil soaking and repeated pounding from the back side, the first wheel came loose. The entire back side of the wheel interface and hub face were coated in some kind of compound. It sure seemed like someone had used an entire can of anti-seize on it. But it was hard, much harder than I’ve ever seen anti-seize get. And it was tough to remove. I ended up using a sander because the wire wheel was not getting anywhere. The rotors had that anti-corrosion coating and some of it was peeling off with whatever was slathered onto the wheel and hub. This stuff had some stickshun to it (my word :))
There was nothing on the studs, thankfully. All the wheels were the same. And thankfully, I got them all loose and cleaned up before finding myself on the side of the road trying to change one of them.
Once ground off, it sure seemed like anti-seize dust. Anyone ever seen anything like this before? Those wheels were stuck big time. And the hubs were rusty but not to an insane degree where they shouldn’t have come off with some minor persuasion.
The saving grace was I found the source of the rattle- by accident. Contacted the rear shock while persuading the wheel to give up the challenge, and it rattled. The outer, upper dust shield rattled against the shock body. Strangely, the shocks seem fine. Just like the inner spacer or whatever they use to keep the dust shield off the body was gone. They are KYB and look fairly new… and both shocks do the same thing…