Press or Hammer out?
Press or Hammer out?
On my wrangler I used a three pound sledge.
Haven't done the Miata yet but may try both.
My opinion-and done successfully many times- thread lugnut on until all threads are engaged, hit as straight as you can with a relatively heavy hammer.
hammer. no lugnut necessary. i usually hit them with the 8lb sledge, gotta be a good shot though.
Hand sledge and good aim. Replace all the studs if you're a bad aim.
On car? I don't hammer if it can be avoided, bad for the wheel bearing. HF ball joint separator works great, often works to put them back in too.
Off car, support from the back with a socket or whatever and hammer away, or press, it doesn't matter.
An air hammer works wonders on them.
KyAllroad wrote: On my wrangler I used a three pound sledge. Haven't done the Miata yet but may try both.
On my Miata, a hammer worked great. Make sure you don't hit the stud next door or you'll be replacing more than one! 
Since this has been answered so well, I have a related question. What to do about rusty wheel studs? They are just surface rust, my brand new lug nuts will thread on fine, but once in awhile they hang up. I think it might be rust coming loose and binding the threads. I can't hit tem with a disc or it'll ruin threads... The thought of some type of lubricant on lug threads scares me...
I've used a tiny bit of anti-seize on studs with no issue before. On the Jeep, the torque spec is a range (90 - 120 ft. lbs.), so I usually torque to 40, then 100 ft. lbs. with the wheel in the air, followed by a short drive and a re-torque to the full spec (120), with or without anything on the studs. I've never had a lug loosen up at all on subsequent checks with this method.
In reply to Trackmouse:
I grease and/or anti-seize all the studs on my personal cars and then torque them to spec. Never had a lugnut loosen up on me in the 8 years I've been working on my own junk. I also anti-seize all brake component bolts and have never had a problem. Here in NY, it's either do that, or break every bolt off after a winter.
Antiseize on the stud is fine, just don't get any on the lug nut seating surfaces.
Noted, and thank you.
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