We started replacing the rusty wheel bolts with the chrome beauties from Boothe Design yesterday.  The wheel hanger was a HUGE time saver!

We took the old set off using our regular socket, but will use the Boothe SoftSocket when putting in the chrome bolts.  It doesn't really pay to skimp on tools which you will use all the time.  Instead of buying a cheap hydraulic jack, get yourself one of these professional unit.  They run between $75 to $200 and will save you a lot of time and effort.  Of course, at NO time should you get underneath the car unless supported by jack stands, NOT just a floor jack.

Once we got the wheel off and popped out the center cap, it was time to remount using the shiny new bolts.  Normally, at this step, we would try to line up the holes while trying to push the wheel into the hub.  It was always a trial and error effort with a good bit of 'cussing :-)

The wheel mounting step has now been made ridiculously simple with the us the Boothe Wheel Hanger.  Just thread in the hanger to the top hole and slid in the wheel.  If the hanger is not in the 12:00 position, then then holes will not be automatically aligned.  However, just push the hanger to the 12 o'clock position and everything will line up.

Once the holes were aligned, it was a simple matter to thread in the bolts.  The 24mm SoftSocket fitted into the openings perfectly.  These tools from Boothe Design turned this semi-annual wrestling match with the wheels into a simple and pleasurable task!

Here is a view of the "before" and "after"...quite a bit of difference from the rusty corroded bolts!  We are still going to clean up the old bolts and save them for use with the Winter tires.  We will have to look for some better rust resistant spray paint and clear coat for sealing the bolts once we've cleaned them.  It'll also give us an opportunity to test out the portable Stylus tool from Dremel.

The front went on with no problems, as did the rear.  However, when we completed the rear, we noticed something odd.  It took us a little while to realized what the problems were. 

To solve the RainyDayGarage Porsche Puzzler of the week, look closely at the photo above.  If you can identify ALL the problems with the the REAR wheel in the photo, we'll send you something from the RainyDayGarage guys' bin of tools and toys :-)  This one is a little more difficult than our usual puzzlers...so don't waste you time just guessing.  Since our interns have been a little overwhelmed lately with the puzzler responses... they kindly request that you put "RainyDayPuzzler" in the subject line of the email and just ONE answer per person please, additional answers will be discarded unread by our interns.  We'll post the answer next weekend.  If there are more than one correct answer, we'll have a drawing for the prize.

NOTE: The RainyDayGarage guys wanted to give you one clue... there is NOTHING wrong with the bolts from Boothe Design, they are perfect.

UPDATE (May 14, 2006): Puzzler Answer....there were two problems with the rear tire.  The first problem was the installer had put the front rim on the rear tire.  This was the reason why the new rear bolts (left red arrow) were protruding so much further then the old bolts (right red arrow).

Most readers were closer on the second problem, but nobody got it exactly right.  Quite a few answers suggested the tires were "unidirectional".  We asked Pirelli and TireRack (where we had purchased these tires) and their answers were ..."The Pirelli tires that you purchased are NOT directional. They have an asymmetric design .... The tread design may appear to be running backwards on one side of the car, but this is the way the tire was designed." Thus, putting them on the other side of the car would not have fixed the problem.  All four tires were mounted with the inside facing out...they had to be remounted.  The installer was quite embarrased when we went back and showed them the problem.  They did remount and re-balanced all four tires free of charge.

The problem is our wheel bolts always get REALLY rusty over the Winter.  We clean and paint them every Spring, but can't seem to keep the rust from coming back.

This year we decided to try something new.  We have decided to replace all of the rusty bolts with these gorgeous bolts from Boothe Design.

The bolts are beautiful, but think twice about the SoftSocket :-)

Reviews:

1. FirstLook

2. FirstUse

3. InTheWild 

Related Reviews:

1. Cleaning the wheel bolts