Painted one rear brake caliper and put the wheel back on. Slooooow process when you don't have time to work on stuff. But hey, ONE brake caliper looks great in Not quite BMW blue, but only you folks and few others will know the difference.

Replaced the rear suspension air bags. Bags were original.

I purchased new rear tires at Discount Tire a while back. Lug bolts on one side were so tight I had to put a floor jack handle over the breaker bar to get them loose and it was still difficult. I'm surprised they didn't break them off. I usually watch them closely but there were lots of people waiting and most of them weren't wearing masks.

My rear tires are sealed so tight I can't budge it with all lug nuts off.

That's what happens when your suv comes from the rust belt states. :(

Do I understand correctly that you have H&R lowering springs with links to drop the rear height?


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That's correct. I considered coilovers instead of new air bags but it is already at the height I like now and with suspension upgrades I did it already handles better than I need for on the street.

I have had this problem plenty of times.

Put on your lug nuts just snug then loosen about 2/3 of a turn each

Lower the car to the ground and go make a couple figure eights in a parking lot.

You can also just try to drop the wheel back to the ground twist the jack to lower as fast as you can.

Both of those tricks have served me well.

I had a couple of sticky wheels too. I put on new rotors this winter and the wheels still had trouble going over the new rotor hub rings. So the corrosion/buildup was actually on my wheel and not the rotor hub ring. A little scour pad action on my wheel hub bores and the wheels go on and off much more nicely.

When I was trying to get these wheels off one took quite a bit of pounding and wiggling to get it off. It made me think that I'm glad I was doing this in my garage and not changing a flat on a cold night on the side of the road trying to karate kick a seized wheel off of the hub.

^ Had that recently on the newly acquired F15. Wheels were stuck on pretty good. Took a few kicks on top and bottom to finally pop them off. Went at the rotor hubs with drill and metal wheel brushes. Light sanding on the wheel hub and then followed up with copper grease on reinstall. Shouldn't be a problem going forward.

Nothing major done to the E53. Checked the connector for the thermostat as it threw a code for it and all appeared in good order. Temperatures have been fine when driving. One of these days I'll change out all the cooling system stuff that I have sitting in a box. One of these days... LOL, I'm still rolling around on a URO expansion tank. :wow:

Also changed out the license plate frames as the old ones were getting pretty crusty. Small change, but makes a big difference visually. At least to me. Someday I'll tackle the faded shadowline trim.

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Just an additional reminder that when you have your wheels off....

Dismount your tires and check for the start of *cracks as potholes, speed bumps and/or the Middle East seems to hammer the crap out of them. [emoji2959][emoji2959]


*20" wheels especially [emoji849]

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Dismounting tires from wheels might be a little overkill in most circumstances. The white witch sees speeds and roads most of our rides don't have to cope with. ;) I haven't had any problems with wheels, but this prompted my last rear tire purchase on Red.

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