All four wheels need new tyres and tubes. I will be changing them 2 by 2. So I removed first the front ones. This was the first time I found my self in front of wire wheels, and although I love them in this classic brit sporty cars, I always look at them with respect. Why? only one big nut that hold them, maintenance, and finding someone in my city that knows how to work with them....
Jacked up the car with the original jack, which worked quite well and nice. Hold the lead hammer, and with 3 knock on the knock-off ear, I could remove it easily. Remove the wire wheel, so I could have time to check the so important splines. They look to be in very good condition, based on what I found in two very interesting articles which I highly recommend to anyone working with wire wheels:
1-
http://www.them-g-c.com/index_files/Page1655.htm
2-
http://classicmotorsports.net/articles/wire-wheels-classic-cars/
The splines look good with no apparent damage as you can see in the image. Need to clean off the old grease, and put new one.
Now I will take the opportunity to use my handy kartcher and give a good clean to all the weel arch, the suspension, hub, etc.
So far I have found 2 shops in Madrid that in theory are capable of working with wire wheels. I will call both again, and see which one convince me, and will take him the front wheels for tyre and tube change, cleaning, painting and balancing.
Finally, I removed the bonnet, 8 screws, and that's it. Be careful because its big and heavy. 2 more hands are always best, but today was not my case, as always, I am on my own. I wanted to remove the bonnet hinges, as the bonnet was not leveled and scratching the bulkhead. I thought one of the hinges, the left one, was damaged because the bonnet was lowered in this side.
I started removing the right hinge, which I have to say was difficult. Needed to remove the facia panel enough to use the spanner. See the image to imagine how difficult it's to remove it.
Once I removed the large bolt, I could find that the hinge, apart from being heavily rusted, was broken in the sides, so I would scrap it.
Moving in to the left hinge, problems began.... I removed the bolt nut, but the bolt is seized and wont come out. Not because it's stuck to the soldered nut in the body, but cause the bolt must be seized inside the bonnet hinge.... I suppose it must be rusted, and I really cant remove it. Now, my main problem is that the bolt head is worn after many attempts of removing it. I have used liberally amounts of WD40, but nothing. What should I do? how can I remove such difficult bolt in such awkward space? Any idea?
