Swollen lug nuts!

[Plati]

I'm only in Ohio winners and maybe you have a standard lug nut Standard hex sided. Those should be much easier for them to plate better and to polish. I also like the look of those better. Mine rusted in about 4 to 5 years but they were not garaged at all. Of course my Chrome wheels pitted way before that. I had the ones that have to have the matching gorilla socket to fit and they have 8 or 9 grooves in them like a socket so maybe those don't hold up as well.

You pretty much have to keep chrome plating clean and dry with some wax or other coating to keep it from rusting, don't you? Chrome is just a VERY THIN chromium layer plated on top of a thicker nickel layer thats usually on top of a copper layer, both plated. There are pathways through that to the steel underneath (microscopic molecular level). The water molecules really want to share electrons with the iron in the steel so they find a way through the plating and you get rust (Iron Oxide). Chromium is grey if more than a few atoms thick and the shiny appearance you see in "chrome" is really the nickel that you can see through the thin chromium layer. I used to chrome plate for a living my first job out of High School and I also did electroless Nickel with embedded Silicon Carbide particles coating for dies that were used to manufacture the first catalytic converters at Corning Glass in Erwin.
https://www.eveningtribune.com/article/20131011/News/131019946?template=ampart

more than anyone wants to know probably

 

[HawkX66]

I'm only in Ohio winners and maybe you have a standard lug nut Standard hex sided. Those should be much easier for them to plate better and to polish. I also like the look of those better. Mine rusted in about 4 to 5 years but they were not garaged at all. Of course my Chrome wheels pitted way before that. I had the ones that have to have the matching gorilla socket to fit and they have 8 or 9 grooves in them like a socket so maybe those don't hold up as well.

I put a link to the ones I bought for my 07 earlier in this thread. Says they're triple chrome plated. The Michigan winters were brutal with the salt they laid down. Even worse than Mass/New England. The lug nuts held up fine so I don't know. My 17 has the 6 spline Gorilla nuts on it. The original owner must have changed them out right away. It only had 24k on the clock when I bought it. Not a lot of call for salt here in VA, so hopefully they'll last like the others. These are black plated though.
edit: I just walked out and looked at the ones on my 07. They're dull with some corrosion now, but no rust. Most importantly they aren't split like the capped OEM crap.

 

[bobmbx]

I installed Gorilla solid steel chrome plated on my 2014EL last year. Yes, there is some surface rust but to me its still preferable to the OEM cap (or shall I say crap).

I see that Gorilla has (on their website https://www.gorilla-auto.com/) a line of solid chrome plated nuts that they call LIFETIME, guaranteed not to rust. I guess I bought the other ones under LUG NUTS and they are rusting a bit. There are different part numbers and the LIFETIME ones have GORILLA stamped into them so I know I don't have them. Seems like they are about the same price. Its a jungle out there, confusing.

View attachment 31005

I see they also offer nuts that are heat treated. I thought they all were heat treated so I don't know what that buys you or if I should have gotten those. Its too confusing for my undersized brain. But I guess if I was doing it again I'd buy the 60 degree M14 by whatever length my Expy is solid chrome LIFETIME acorn nuts.

Heat treating relieves stress in the material induced during manufacturing, and improves strength and/or ductility. There are two types of heat treating, annealing and tempering.

In a nutshell, annealing heats the metal and then allows it to cool slowly. Tempering is heating metal and then quenching it (douching it in water). Lug nuts are tempered for hardness (you don't want a soft lug nut)

 

[Langer]

I installed Gorilla solid steel chrome plated on my 2014EL last year. Yes, there is some surface rust but to me its still preferable to the OEM cap (or shall I say crap).

I see that Gorilla has (on their website https://www.gorilla-auto.com/) a line of solid chrome plated nuts that they call LIFETIME, guaranteed not to rust. I guess I bought the other ones under LUG NUTS and they are rusting a bit. There are different part numbers and the LIFETIME ones have GORILLA stamped into them so I know I don't have them. Seems like they are about the same price. Its a jungle out there, confusing.

View attachment 31005

I see they also offer nuts that are heat treated. I thought they all were heat treated so I don't know what that buys you or if I should have gotten those. Its too confusing for my undersized brain. But I guess if I was doing it again I'd buy the 60 degree M14 by whatever length my Expy is solid chrome LIFETIME acorn nuts.

So according to a few pages earlier in this thread,, 2014 and earlier is 14mm x2.0, and 2015-17 is 14mm x1.5, so if I follow that chart, is everything in the row beyond those two specifications just personal preference, or is there more to it?

 

[Plati]

So according to a few pages earlier in this thread,, 2014 and earlier is 14mm x2.0, and 2015-17 is 14mm x1.5, so if I follow that chart, is everything in the row beyond those two specifications just personal preference, or is there more to it?

I think so, but standard lug wrench is 13/16" so you would want that, right?
Unless you want to carry a special wrench.

That chart actually confuses me. There's a cell with 12MMx1.75 but the dimension at the top is 1.4" not 1.75" and that I do not understand.

What I did to double check was pull one off and measure it first before ordering.

 

[TobyU]

You pretty much have to keep chrome plating clean and dry with some wax or other coating to keep it from rusting, don't you? Chrome is just a VERY THIN chromium layer plated on top of a thicker nickel layer thats usually on top of a copper layer, both plated. There are pathways through that to the steel underneath (microscopic molecular level). The water molecules really want to share electrons with the iron in the steel so they find a way through the plating and you get rust (Iron Oxide). Chromium is grey if more than a few atoms thick and the shiny appearance you see in "chrome" is really the nickel that you can see through the thin chromium layer. I used to chrome plate for a living my first job out of High School and I also did electroless Nickel with embedded Silicon Carbide particles coating for dies that were used to manufacture the first catalytic converters at Corning Glass in Erwin.
https://www.eveningtribune.com/article/20131011/News/131019946?template=ampart

more than anyone wants to know probably

We had some huge wrap-around bumpers and other parts re chrome for a 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan back in the mid-eighties. Luckily there were two plating companies within 10 to 12 miles from us that both did and house plating. This was back before the big round of EPA regulations.
One of the shops was very old looking inside but huge and showed us the tanks and the polishing wheels and everything they did. They offered show quality for an extra 10% more.
I believe they told us it was copper plated and then two rounds of nickel plating and then the Chrome on top or whatever.
I just know you can't get high quality chroming like you used to in the seventies and eighties.
They forced them to change chemicals or use less or something. I don't know. I think they used cyanide or something in the plating process.
I just did a quick search and found some posts about that being used but for the copper first plating. It says it a lot of Old-Timers say the copper plating is better and gives a deeper shine but most shops don't do it anymore they just do the nickel. Maybe that's why things don't hold up as well.

 

[Plati]

We had some huge wrap-around bumpers and other parts re chrome for a 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan back in the mid-eighties. Luckily there were two plating companies within 10 to 12 miles from us that both did and house plating. This was back before the big round of EPA regulations.
One of the shops was very old looking inside but huge and showed us the tanks and the polishing wheels and everything they did. They offered show quality for an extra 10% more.
I believe they told us it was copper plated and then two rounds of nickel plating and then the Chrome on top or whatever.
I just know you can't get high quality chroming like you used to in the seventies and eighties.
They forced them to change chemicals or use less or something. I don't know. I think they used cyanide or something in the plating process.
I just did a quick search and found some posts about that being used but for the copper first plating. It says it a lot of Old-Timers say the copper plating is better and gives a deeper shine but most shops don't do it anymore they just do the nickel. Maybe that's why things don't hold up as well.

Yeah. There were a lot of chemicals in the plating shop I worked in. I had the run of the place and did every process they had … it was job shop so I'd just go get a job from loading dock floor and do it. Everybody else was escaped from WWII Europe or released from Federal Prison, etc. One guy couldn't talk because the Russians hung him and he survived. Loved that place! Copper, nickel, chrome, zinc, cadmium, silver, black oxide, anodizing, chromate conversions, brite dip or etching, stripper tanks (not that kind od stripper though). We had barrel plating and tanks where you would wire up parts or put them on a rack and hang in tanks, moving between steps manually. Usually degrease in trichlor (3 sections) by hand, dip in Muriatic acid to remove rust, cyanide dip to cease rust - then plate. There were a cleaner tanks with electrolosys that was caustic soda solution. Lots of water rinses in between. It was an ancient building with huge fans up in the ceiling, that was the fumes control. All the excess fluids went right into the city sewer system. Old expression "the solution to pollution is dilution". I cant believe I'm still alive.

Some parts … heavy copper plate then take to buffer wheels with compound would shine up nice. Maybe do that again. Then nickel and finally chrome for the blue'ish tint. I owned a Suzuki motorcycle at the time and any part I could get off got plated which I needed because I drove it year round in the winter etc. Driving a motorcycle in a snowstorm, only young and stupid (me) can get away with stuff like that! Did I say I cant believe I'm still alive.

 

[Trainmaster]

"the solution to pollution is dilution"

Throw it in the drink. Love it!

 

[TobyU]

That sounds exactly like the place I had a tour of when I was about 16.

 

[Iamsam1117]

I ordered some off Ebay for $40 and installed them today all went smoothly! Just make note for 2015 models and newer you need M14X1.5 60* cone.

The single piece steel construction is sooo much better then the crappy Ford ones had 5 of them I literally had to hammer a socket on to get off!

They came from CTM Auto Parts