The rubber in pneumatic tires / tubes rots when left out in the open for a year or three, so I volunteered to replace the dead-flat tire (on the wheelbarrow I rebuilt last year) with the “flat free” solid foam tire+wheel harvested from an irreparably damaged wheelbarrow. Which, as it turned out, had lost one bearing and the remaining bearing wasn’t in good shape:
The bearings in the pneumatic wheel were in comparatively good shape:
So I knocked the good bearings out, cleaned up / re-lubed them with squirts from my lifetime supply of genuine Mobil Vactra No. 2 Sticky Way Oil, and hammered tapped them into the solid-tire wheel.
Whereupon I discovered the two wheels have different hub lengths and, unfortunately, the axle clamps in the recipient wheelbarrow lacked enough adjustment range.
Well, I can fix that:
I briefly considered cleaning and repainting the wheel, but came to my senses when I considered the tire’s condition:
I suppose when the tread flakes off, the interior foam will rapidly erode, but we’ll burn that bridge when we encounter it.
The alert reader will have immediately noted the grease fitting on that rusty wheel: you’re supposed to periodically fill the entire hub with sufficient grease to push the crud out of the bearings. IMO, that’s so deep in silk purse territory as to be irrelevant.
The remaining useful parts from the defunct wheelbarrow will, most likely, come to good use next year …
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 