Fresh Hardware.
A couple of weeks ago (just before the rainy season started here in SoCal) I took a look at my wheels and noticed that they looked “old”. Turns out that they were just fine, but really dirty with brake dust. instead of shiny gunmetal/grey, my Level 8 Bully Pro 6 wheels were looking very brown and very dull! Looking closer, I noticed that my red painted brake calipers were also dull and dirty. The original zinc-plated lug nuts were faded from being exposed to the elements for over 4 years now, and the black hub centric rings I was experimenting with during my tire swap didn’t do the look any favors. It was time to give my wheels a good cleaning and replace the worn stuff with fresh new hardware:
It was raining all day, but it was the only day I had free to do the job. I ended up removing all 4 wheels and tires from the truck, set them out in the rain, sprayed the wheels with some good degreaser, and let Mother Nature (you know, rain) do some cleaning while I did some other stuff in the garage. After a good soaking in degreaser and rain water, I gave each wheel a good scrub and a rinse of clean water with the garden hose and the wheels were nice, clean, and brake-dust free.
Here’s a photo below of the original (and now faded) hub centric rings that came with my Level 8 wheels back in November of 2015. In the middle are custom rings I had made in black (and no, I don’t like them after all). On the right are brand new hub centric rings – same as the original ones, but fresh and shiny:
Below is a photo of the original (and now faded) lug nuts. These used to be zinc plated, but now they look like old, worn down silver. On the right are new replacement lug nuts (thanks to the crew at Discount Tire for finding them for me) and these are the same zinc-plated lug nuts as the originals. Just like the new hub centric rings above, the new lug nuts are also fresh and shiny:
Putting everything back on the truck was easy, it just took some times since I was working on a rainy day and with no assistance. The results of about 2 hours of work paid off:
