Nicholas Fluhart

So I finally ran across a good deal on the type of rims I’ve been looking for. They are a set of OEM Honda aluminum rims from a 500 Foreman. My goal was to reduce the weight of my tire and rim combination. The Dirt Devil XT’s I’ve been running are a relatively heavy tire, and mounted on steel rims makes the combo even heavier. I wanted an OEM aluminum rim because the aftermarket sets are very thick and actually weigh as much as steel rims, which for my intentions, defeats the purpose. I found the rims I wanted on eBay and installed them just before a big ride. I weighed the old combo and then used my manual tire changer to switch out the rims. I then weighed the new combo to see the difference.

Conclusions: Well the new rims are each about 4 lbs lighter than the steel rims, which only saves me about 16 lbs on the total. That’s better than nothing, but I’ll be installing a new set of tires soon so we’ll see what that gets me. Another thing to note if installing 500 rims on a 450: the lug studs on the 450 are a little shorter. It still works, but there are no threads to spare.

As you can see in one of my previous Foreman posts, I run an auxiliary light on the rear…comes in handy when winching or reversing at night. This is one of the single most handy items on the ATV, so I use it often. However, if you’ve seen any of my riding posts on this site, you know it’s not uncommon for my machine to see service in deep water. The poses a problem for the incandescent light. As seen below, the light I’m using is not a sealed beam, it has a small, replaceable bulb. When water is introduced to the hot bulb, the result is failure. Subsequently, I found myself replacing bulbs regularly.

Solution: After having found and installed some LED work lights on the headache rack on my truck, I decided one of these lights would be the perfect solution. The LEDs of course are sealed and the components are water resistant; all I’d have to do is drill a small drain hole in the bottom of the rubber housing. Furthermore, the light is brighter and only pulls about an amp and a half draw.