Thankfully, all I was doing was swapping out my spare wheel as the tread on the nearside front had become illegal. Thats when I found out the spare wheel securing bolt/assembly was totally siezed. It took me over an hour with the aid of a blowlamp, plenty of WD40, a whacking great pair of grips and the assistance of a well built wife to get the thing free. Even then it was severly bent and had to be replaced with another from the scrap yard.

I replaced the bolt with one with a proper hex head as the end of the tool that's used to unscrew the spare wheel broke off in my attempts to remove the bolt.

Tip if yours is siezed too - push up on the bolt from underneath the vehicle with a jack or something similar (you can let some air out of the spare tyre if it is the right way up) which allows you to get enough room in the boot to get a hold of the head of the bolt with a mole grip.

They problem seems to be that the tyres are to reliable now, not enough punctures! So the spare wheel never comes out. I have noticed that most of the sheet metal has rotted away on my spare wheel carrier, just leaving the frame! but no rust anywhere else, must have been driven on salty motorways a lot. I will check the bolt on mine, thanks for the reminder.

Peter.N.