Wheels, Paint & Lamp

I have had a problem with tyres for ages. Not so much tyres as wheels. Degsy came with set of "extra grip" tyres but they were very noisy. I managed to purchase a set of four road bias tyres but only on two of them came on wheels. I had two of the wheels of the extra grip tyres swapped onto the road tyres. The trouble is I have eight tyres, four extra grip and four road tyres, but only six wheels. I had a hunt round Ebay and the Internet but not come up with two steel Land Rover wheels. I had given up on finding the wheels. I was going past the garage that did the work on Degsy so I dropped in. I had the two wheel-less extra grip tyres in the back of Degsy. The garage man said a couple of steel wheels somewhere. I agreed to pick them up the following week i.e. today. I said the fit the tyres to the rims. The tyres need tubes too. I turned up at the appointed time and was parted from £20. A tenner each for a wheel and a tube and fitted too, brilliant.

When I got the wheels home I got the other wheels out of garage. I took the wire brush and sand paper to them and have them a scrub. Once scrubbed and brushed down I had a rummage in the garage for the tin of paint. The paint is named "Limestone". It is nice and thick. I painted each wheel in turn, inside and outside and set them aside to dry.

Whilst waiting for the paint to dry I got the high-lift jack out of Degsy. I got the socket and the long lever and went round each wheels and loosened each wheel nut. Some where really tight. I got the wheel chocks out of the garage and put them under the rear wheels. I went for lunch. The paint dried quickly. Once I figured how to use the jack I jacked the front of Degsy up. I took off one wheel at a time. Whilst the wheel off I scrubbed and brushed up the hub then painted it. The wheel was then put back on. I went round each wheel at a turn. When the wheel went back on I touched up the hubs. Degsy looks great. I just need to slacken and re-tightened up the wheel nuts and make sure the paint has not stuck the wheels nuts to the wheel.

Whilst I was at the Landy garage I was told the reversing light had to be working for the MOT. My reversing light was not working. When I took the lens off I found the internals were rusted solid. I checked the wiring and found that there was current once the headlights were on and the fog lamp switch is flipped. I happened to have a reversing light in my store cupboard. I had to use the angle grinder to get the bolts of the old reversing light off. I also had to remove the panel inside the tub that covers the wiring. There was a right jumble of wiring under the cover but there was plenty of wire for the live feed and negative return. The new lamp had a good length of bonded wires that made the unit waterproof. I taped the new unit wires to the existing wires and used the old wires to pull the new wires into the tub. It took a little bit of jiggling but it was easy. Once the wires were routed it was just a short job to bolt the fog light unit to the body. It took just a few minutes to trim the wires and fix female bullet connectors and join up the wires. Then the cover was replaced. Job done. One less thing to be concerned about.