As you’re probably aware this is meant to be a blog all about property auctions and the associated pre-auction and post auction topics like market conditions and property renovation that accompany them. So this article is a bit off topic but still has a property related theme that being the propertyauctionaction.co.uk L200 Series 5 truck, a workhorse used by many property professionals!
The real reason I’m writing it is if it helps one person then that’s got to be a good result. I had a puncture in one of the tyres and removing the wheel was a bit like a challenge from the Krypton factor.
Now I’ve run Mitsubishi L200’s for 14 years and touch wood never had to do a roadside wheel-change, roll-on airless tyres! There are glimmers of hope with companies like Michelin, Goodyear, Hankook and Continental all supposedly working on something like a rubber coated honeycomb mesh structure that doesn’t get a puncture but for now we’ll have to put up with fixing flats!
In the case of my Mitsi getting the wheel off was a doddle but sussing out how to get the spare tyre out from underneath the vehicle well that was a different kettle of fish all together. I wouldn’t want to be stuck by the side of a rainy B road in the middle of the night trying to work out how to get the spare wheel out from its hidey hole.
After much head scratching I resorted to a bit of RTFM which revealed the reason the bottle jack handle is so long (about 3 feet) is because it has to be passed through a hole in the bodywork underneath the tail gate in order to mate with the winch mechanism that drops the spare wheel down from its stowed position.
By locating the pins from the handle into the winch and turning it anticlockwise the wheel is lowered down onto the floor. The operation of the winch was surprisingly smooth in my case considering the amount of abuse it must take from the spray coming directly at it off the road.
Once on the floor I then had to lift one side of the wheel up on blocks to get enough slack in the chain, and here comes the tricky bit, in order to push the plate attached to the chain that holds the wheel in place through the centre cap hole.
With the spare wheel out I thew it back on the hub and did the wheel nuts up tightening them all up before dropping if off the jack and finishing them to 110nm and checking the tyre pressure was at 33psi.
When it comes to stowing the spare the tricky bit is getting the securing plate back through the centre cap hole. Like the removal it entailed lifting one side of the wheel up on blocks and then coaxing the plate back down through the hole.
Once the plate is completely through the hole it’s a matter of slowly turning the jack handle clockwise to raise the wheel back up again into its stowed position making sure its good and tight but not too tight, then stowing all the tools back in their position behind the back seat, job done!
