Yesterday we tried to remove the 70-year-old tyres from the split rims and what a job that was! I cannot believe those wheels are so heavy - they must weigh 100 kg each!! After unscrewing (with great difficulty) the frozen nuts that hold the two rims together we tried several different methods, including laying the wheel down flat and pressing down on the tyre with a crowd-action FEL, riding up onto the tyre with a vehicle, pumping it full of air to separate the halves, and tying one rim to a well-anchored post and pulling the other one with a winch! We even considered burning the tyres off the rims!
In the end there was no substitute for the tried-and-proven 1942 method, using an impact hammer (a heavy crow-bar with a sliding weight) and a large drift-pin hit with maximum force by a (younger) assistant wielding a 20 pound sledge hammer! Even with that method it still took about an hour to remove each tyre and separate the rims. The rims will now be sand-blasted and painted after replacing some of the studs, which were badly eaten away with rust.
Recently we made the stencils for the identification numbers and the kiwi emblem and spray-painted them onto the bonnet (see pic) exactly as shown in the WWII archive photos. Onwards and upwards !
