flats from the past

pete black

Well-known Member
been a few posts concerning tire irons, lug wrenches and jacks. wonder how many younger folks realize what it took to change/repair a flat in the fifties. my dad never got in a vehicle unless he checked all four tires for roundness. most roads where still unpaved, nylon ply tires with limited tread made for interesting flats, combine that with few service stations open after normal work hours and you really had to be flat tire savvy. when i purchased my old 52 chevy pickup there were four critical items stored under the seat: screw jack with folding operating rod, four way lug wrench with one flatened end for removing hub cap, tire irons for removing tire from rim and a a piece of scrap 2x6 for placing under the jack. accessing the jack under the seat would be a puzzle now of days for most folks, then there is the placement of the jack under the vehicle for raising. slope, mud, gravel roads were all a factor in the placement. then there were those bumper jacks, a whole other animal and not even mentioning the repair of the flat tire/tube.
 
Oh yeah, the good ol' days!

Go back a few more years, to the pre-WW2 era, cotton ply tires, combined with depression economy. Didn't dare throw anything away until it had rolled it's last inch!

The documentary about the first car driven from California to New York, flat and ruined tires was the biggest problem they endured.
 
fun times in the 50s.
dad would put on a used (never a new tire)tire when he got home from work.

it was me and monty job to put 300 pumps of air in that tire before dad got home the next day.
never had a air conpresser in his life.
now you know why i hae 4 air conpresser. 6 if the 12 volt counts
 

As a kid In 40's relatives would come 200 miles to visit. I remember one time one of them bragging that he didn't even have a flat. I also remember in 50's when I started driving if you got 10,000 miles on a set of tires you were lucky.
 
Been looking at new cars. Standard issue is no spare tire. Options are an air inflator or blowup spare. No full size spares either.
 
I came of age in the mid 1950's and one of the first things my dad taught me was how to change a tire...because he knew I would need to know it. And sure enough....you had to change a flat tire (or two) My all time favorite: A date with a girlfriend to attend a formal (tux and all) dance. Had a flat on the two lane arsenal bridge between Davenport and Rock Island and got to change a tire in my tux.
 
All my kids (3 daughters, 1 son) can change a flat, jump start a car, check fluid levels.

Oldest daughter came out of her dorm once to find a flat on her car, she started getting out her jack, etc., and changed her tire

Her friends were amazed
Had a boy she was hanging out with tell me 'she sure knows a lot about cars'

Fred
 

In 1983 I had three flats in a row between Bendigo and Ballarat in the wee hours of a Winter's morning . The Government car had a decent spare , I was in the habit of carrying a few cans of tyre inflator as well .
I was caught by Highway patrol speeding at four am , annoyed at the delay and late for a serious problem over a hundred Km away , I told him about the flats , once he saw the empty cans , jack and wheel brace out and my dirty hands and suit he believed me . He told me off royally for speeding then let me off what would have been a hefty fine .
I've been very good since then :wink:
 
Last couple of Saturdays I have been working on cleaning out an old farmhouse that used to belong to my grandparents. Found 43 old tires that had been saved for one reason or another, ranging from what looks like Model T tires or something similar all the way to maybe 1980's vintage which is when they retired from farming. Sort of a history of 20th century tire technology; I am thinking I might keep some of them just from that standpoint. Many were badly worn, some almost totally smooth, but I guess they thought they might come in handy some time.
 
My 08 Focus was one of those spare less rigs that came with a can of gunk/inflator. I bought a wheel and mounted a tire on it and naturally it won't fit in the trunk recess. NOT one of Hank's "better ideas."
 
(quoted from post at 09:29:21 01/24/17) Oh yeah, the good ol' days!

Go back a few more years, to the pre-WW2 era, cotton ply tires, combined with depression economy. Didn't dare throw anything away until it had rolled it's last inch!

The documentary about the first car driven from California to New York, flat and ruined tires was the biggest problem they endured.

My barber has the owners manual that came with his Dad's M which he purchased just after WWII. In the manual it warns against driving the tractor at full speed due to the poor quality of the tires because all the good stuff went to the military.
 
i carry a 12volt air compressor and a tire plugging kit in my truck. came in handy several times!! quicker to plug em than to change em unless you get a blow out.
 

In 1988 we bought a new class C motor home on a Ford E-350 chassis and drove it until the fall of '02 when we bought another class C on an E-350 chassis. Then in the summer of 2016 we bought another new class C motor home on an E-450 chassis.

The '88 we had maybe 6 flat tires. the '02 we didn't have any flats.
The 2016 came without a spare, and because of never having a flat, I thought of not getting a spare for it. But I shopped around and found a wheel for it and bought a new tire for it. This past July we had a flat on it.

Dusty
 
Glad my 2003 Expedition still takes a full size spare. Those old tires your grand folks kept, at one time recaps were common. You needed a good casing to trade in. Todays tire are modern marvels compaired to 40 years ago. Now dropped tools, roofing nails, pieces of glass, and other assorted trash along the road will still take out that round thing that holds up your vehicle.
 

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