Hi All
Looking for some help with freestyles please...
I’ve got a 2004 TD5 110, it’s an ex-MOD, 9 seater. It’s my second TD5 defender and I haven’t really found anything that isn’t standard about it, in fact I am not sure why it has a special vehicles ID plate fitted to be honest, it’s a bog standard model, no extras.
Anyway, when I got her she had white steel wheels, not wolf wheels, and over the winter they were looking a bit rusty so I thought I’d swap them for a set of alloys.
I came across a set of 5 freestyle alloys with good tyres and a set of nuts for a crazy price so I bought them. I came to put them on yesterday and found a few issues...
The nuts seemed a bit stiff at first but after a couple of runs on and off they freed up fine. Definitely not cross threaded, just hard work.
The wheels were what I can probably best describe as a “reluctant” fit. They went on far enough to get the nuts on with a few turns, but needed a spanner/ratchet to turn them past there it needed another 5-10 or so full turns before they would finally torque up.
It didn’t need a very much force to turn the nuts but no way could it have been done by hand, it needed a bit of push to get the back of the alloy to be a flush at the back. Shall we say the wheels needed more than hand force to get them fully on, but they went on. All 4.
Before doing this I had a read around and concluded that there were no issues with fitting freestyle alloys to any later defender with disc brakes, so long as the the stud spacing was right (not disco 2 etc...). I considered fitting wheel spacers but when I read that they were purely cosmetic/ not necessary / even frowned on by some owners, I didn’t bother.
So now I find that I can get the wheels back off! They seem to be jammed on and I am worried that I may have damaged the hubs by applying more force than I realised. Any clues why this is? Were the MOD / special vehicles fitted with different hubs to standard TD5s? I’m a bit worried that when I need to fit new boots or brake pads that they won’t come off without causing some real damage...
Thanks for any advice
Matt