After my offroading session on Saturday I thought I had blasted out all the mud from the nearside wheels with a jetwasher, however, on the trip up the A1 to Newcastle on Sunday evening it was apparrent from the horrendous wheel wobble from the nearside front that I had not bee as thorough as I had thought. I ended up pulling into a layby on the A68 and put the front wheels on full lock and managed to scrape out 99% of the hardened mud with my hands. I didn't suffer any more wheel wobble for the rst of the trip back.
I had to remove the front nearside wheel this afternoon to clean out mud stuck in the back of the rim. It is very important that you clean out as much mud stuck to your wheels after being offroad as once hardened it acts like lots of balance weights, but they are really "unbalancing" weights. The presence of crud insode the rim manifests itself as severe wheel wobble at speed and will lead to odd wearing on the tyre and can damage the transmission system.
On a 4WD vehicle it is important to clean out behind all 4 rims to avoid damage to the rear transmission too.
So today was wheel cleaning day........................... there wasn't very much left in the backs of the wheels so I ahd made a good cleaning job on the roadside, but using the jack has highlighted a couple of things.
Those of you not used to 4x4's may not be aware of the process for jacking up an SUV................... DO READ THE MANUAL as it is important that you follow the correct procedure to lock the transmission in LOW ratio and raise the air suspension to offroad height BEFORE you even get the jack out of the boot. Then there are the wedges you must put either side of the diagonally opposite wheel to the one you want to remove. All of this is to stop the vehicle from rolling away when jacked up.
Now here is what I found today:
1) The wedges are stored in the polystyrene holder under the boot floor.......... 2 sets of hinged plates. BUT you will need a long bladed flat head screwdriver to remove them from the slot in the carrier as they are such a tight fit that you cannot get your fingers in there to pull them out!
2)The jack on UK spec cars is a screw/scissor type jack which is quite common. What is unusual, even for a Land Rover, is where the jack engages which is about 10" under the car from the doors and there isn't the usual little rest/ support but a hole in the subframe that engages on a pin on the jack. You have to get down on the ground to even see the holes and to have any chance of even reaching under there the suspension must be set to offroad height. The jack locates and fits fine.
3)The jack is actived using the hexhead wheel bolt removing key and a 2 piece extension that cleverly all slots together. However, don't forget to loosen (not completely undo) the wheel nuts before jacking the car up - assembling and taking to pieces the jack activator isn't difficult......... but it ain't too smart either! There are instructions in the owners manual how to assemble the bits.
4) Even the 18" wheel is darned heavy, so watch your back when lifting it on and off
5)More kit to add to the rear in addition to the screwdriver is an old boilersuit or waterproofs and either some latex gloves or rigger gloves so that when you have finished you won't dirty up the inside of your car with you, by now, filthy hands (I also have a sachet of 10 wet-wipes for hand cleaning in the spare moulded slot with the jack etc now!!)

Had it been a driver's side wheel then using the jack would not have fun.....