Should I sand down these pits in the wheel nuts or is that a bad idea?
@meatman - I can only help let you know what I did with mine, that looked similar to yours.
I ended up machining the faces of the nuts in a lathe. We made a threaded jig (left hand thread on one end, right handed on the other) and skimmed the face of the wheel nuts to return them to like new (although without the anodised surface) - here's a picture of the jig we used - I haven't got photo of the finished wheel nuts.
To clean up the surfaces in the wheels, I stuck some adhesive backed diamond emery tape (similar to wet and dry paper, but with adhesive backing) onto the wheel nuts (before i machined them), and then used these to take the 'galling' lumps and bumps off the wheel surface. I simply used the standard socket to rotate/drive the nut using a large electric drill I have here, and used my body weight to help - it only took a minute or two for each wheel (I had to replace the tape several times).
Here's a picture of the nut, plus a 'before and after' of the wheels
If I was doing it again, especially now that I have the jig we made, I would machine the wheel nut to 119 degree included angle first, then put the adhesive tape on and clean up the wheel's mating surface. Once that was done I would re-machine the nut included angle back to 120 degree included angle (my measurement show that's what they are from factory). This would make sure the wheel and nut come into contact towards their outer perimeter as designed (you can see the wear in your photos and mine above is always towards the outer edge) This difference in angles makes sure the wheel nuts don't 'work loose' when driven under load.
@rjbender That's really nice work. My wheel nuts and wheel surfaces look very much like your "before" pictures and seem to work ok. But it does concern me when I look at it.
I have found that any lubricants tend to cause the wheel to loosen a bit during a session so I don't use any. I just blow off the brake dust in the threads and carry on.
