900 Club Forum

Its not been a good week for my land rovers, there now is serious dent in het hobby budget.

First the cooling loss on my 130 TD5 turn out to be due to a cracked head rather than a shifted gasket and than the tyre workshop managed to bend 2 of my 203 rims trying to get a couple of old nato tyres of. Good thing they gave up before attempting the 3rd.

Anyhow, just wanted to share, sorry for the inconvenience caused. Guess I need to be looking for an anvil and a workshop press now

I'd be requiring the tyre place to straighten your rims, how on earth did they manage to bend them???

I'm really not sure I can blame them for it. They have done some other heavy (dis)mounting for me in te past, they have the right equipment and really know what their stuff too. On top of that it wasn't exactly a commercial venture, they never really charged me for hobby work. (I really do not want to know how many hours they spend on removing a similar set of tyres a couple of years ago all for the price of an apple pie)

Anyhow, you know how rugged the heels of these tyre are, and having sat for nearly 40 years doesn't help either. Judging by the remaining rubber inside the rims they were practically vulcanised to them. Just a shame it happened to this set of rims.
I'll get them straightened and clelaned at some point once I'm over the mood coming with the damage in the first place. I know that when I start a job like that I actually find it quiet enjoyable to get things back in shape.

Shame, but I shouldn't worry too much. A fairly easy fix I should reckon. Recently mullered one rim on my ex-utility co. trailer simply by hitting one extreme pothole down the lanes near me. Caused a blow-out, and had me nailing on the spare, pronto.

I thought the rim was finished it was so bad. Almost a quadrant for a dent. I'm not suggesting you use quite the same knuckle-dragger approach, but with a cheap rim I found judicious use of a big hammer had it sorted very quickly. I brought that rim back from the dead inside 15 mins without care or effort. On my repair, if you're looking you'll see it, but it passes. Of course it all depends on the extent of the damage. I suspect if my trailer rims are anything to move by, your damage looks far worse than it is.

A hour's care will sort them. A panel-beater's dolly in a vice did the last stretch for me.

First one straightened out pretty well , will mount it on an axle this weekend to see if the staightened centre is actually still aligned.
Now to remove the tire from the second (they only managed to get one heel of the rim, so I still have to cut the other to get the tire off)
Any experience in cutting heavy tires? will the angle grinder be required or is it more a hacksaw kind of a job. I'll try the hacksaw approach first anyway.

Cracked head meanwhile has been replaced, first hour it ran very sweet however the driver is still a bit shaken by the bill that came with it. Now after some 60 miles it developed a bit of a hammering noise. Probably a dirty injector, so back to the workshop that did the work first thing in the morning.

So far for the camping trip this weekend I reckon, but the next club event is only the first weekend of june. So I have good hopes