Have you checked your spare tyre?

[old man emu]

I've had my car for a few years now, and never have had a flat tyre.  I'm driving down the Sydney tomorrow, so, being a pessimist, I decided to check the pressure in my spare tyre. It's one of those "limp into town" ones that have an 80 kph speed rating. I was amazed to see that the recommended pressure was 60 psi. When I hooked it up to the air pump at the garage, the indicator showed its pressure as 21 psi. 

 

I'm glad I did the check, but hope that pumping up the tyre has been simply a necessary precaution.

[facthunter]

The more things you check the better your luck is. Nev

[Litespeed]

We make our own luck.

 

If you have appropriate tools - you rarely need them.

[pmccarthy]

Sometimes having the appropriate tool can lead to a lifetime of regret.

[Litespeed]

Esp if you have a tool but not the knowledge or skill to use it.

 

I was thinking more of proper maintenance and carrying a appropriate tool kit to fix any issue bar disaster.

 

Many years of bike touring and I found the bikes with a quality kit ie BMW,  never disappoint.

 

The boy scout method, be prepared.

 

Ps. I was never a scout- too many rules 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Blimey - when I saw the thread title, I tought it was about MAS - Middle Aged Spread....

 

 

[facthunter]

So did I. Great minds think alike?  Around about 1950 a Tyre cost a weeks wages and lasted about 8000 miles..  A grease and oil change every 1,000 miles.  Check your oil water and battery acid level frequently . That is IF you could  even afford a car. Nev

[onetrack]

And they were dreadful cross-ply tyres! - with zero handling traits, they'd pull you all over the road under braking effort (that's if you had brakes that worked reasonably effectively) - and they had inner tubes that created friction and heat, which shortened their already short life!

I used Michelin radials from the early 1960's, they were a godsend to high-speed country motoring. But you had to keep the pressures up in them, to reduce wall sag, or you'd get sidewall stakes with sharp rocks, especially on freshly graded roads.

And aftermarket PBR VH-series vacuum-operated brake boosters, were the answer to go-faster drum brakes. 

Plus - sealed roads were few and far between, and most sealed roads were narrow, necessitating pulling off onto the gravel shoulder to pass oncoming traffic - which was very light, on most roads.

[facthunter]

No Power steering, Heaters or Airconditioning then. Some brakes were by Cables. No crumple zones Vaccuum, operated windscreen wipers which slowed up then you accelerated. No turn signals. SOME euro ones had semaphore. Hand signals other wise. 6 Volt electrics. No synchro on first gear and only 3 speeds. No front brakes prior to 1928. and often wooden spoked wheels. Nev

[onetrack]

And the wood would dry out in the wooden-spoked wheels and shrink, and make the wheel wobble! Then you had to buy special wedges to hammer under the ends of the spokes, to tighten them up!

[facthunter]

 They  wedge in a rivetted steel hub. I've been in a 1929   Six cyl Chev dickie   seat and heard them Creaking as we went along

[spacesailor]

Hey ! .

I found one of those early ' wooden spoked wheeled '  vehicles. 

Could have been a ' Chevy or Ford ' flat top 4 cylinder motor and crash 3 speed box .

The property was/is owned by a firm of solicitors. So no actual ' owner ' . Soon be scrap as the leanto shed is falling over .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Chevrolet didn't make any side valve models that I know of.  Could be a Ford Model A (orB). Later Fords had Welded spokes. (Quite Nice) in the 30's. Should be worth something more than Just scrap. The Fords have leaf springs across the front and rear.. Nev

[onetrack]

Ford Model A's all used steel wire spoke wheels. The first 2 years of production (1927-29), they were 21" wire wheels, the second 2 years of production (1929-31), they were 19" wire wheels.

Get us a photo, Spacey, so we can ID the car.

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Chevrolet didn't make any side valve models that I know of.

Chev 'Flying Four' was possibly SV

 There weren't many Americal OHV motors in 1920

[nomadpete]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

The Fords have leaf springs across the front and rear.. Ne

As did most other cars pre 1930

[facthunter]

I don't think so Pete. The FORD set up was unique with its stabiliser bars and the Need for their OWN spring spreader to install it.  I wasn't pro Ford at all.  I found them quite hard to work on and didn't like the gearboxes.  Tended to break the ODD tooth off a gear.The T model was sun and Planetary. A very clever set up. No Clutch needed...Nev

[nomadpete]

Ok I stand corrected.

Chev was an early adoptor of OHV.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

My dad made a few quid re-grooving bald tyres. He made the stand for the wheel to revolve on by hand, and he made the electric groover which was like a large electric soldering iron but instead of having a copper tip, he made a "U" shaped steel tip for it. As kids we used watch the long strips of rubber stream down as he went around the tyre.

 

My dad also invented the Sherline soldering iron, where the solder wire was pulled along by a trigger over the top of the tip.

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

Off topic just for a moment.

 

My Dad's prototype soldering iron, and put to use to do his radio repair work. It was rescued after he passed in the Ninties, along with other stuff. Not long before he died, he showed me the patent certificate. In the early fifties, Sherline in South Australia asked him, by letter, if they could manufacture it. He never replied, I'm not sure why, but knowing Dad, he just got lazy. Sherline waited the sixteen years and claimed the right to make the soldering iron.

 

 

 

Other interesting facts about my Dad is he had one of the very rare VW Kombi Microbuses with split front seats. And he made an electronic ignition in the mid Sixties before they became common. It was a hobby project, but he fitted it to a customer's/friend's truck and that truck went many miles before Dad removed it and reinstalled the old contact distributor points. In other words, his electronic ignition worked a beauty. 

Edited Friday at 05:03 AM by Grumpy Old Nasho

[spacesailor]

Photos  ! .

Anyone near  Burke,  could you possibly nip over to " Quonebone station " to take a few pics .

98 klmtrs NE of Nyngan,  ( as the crow fly's ) . LoL

Yes , they do have an airstrip .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

It's getting DARK out there.  Nev

[ClintonB]

Most caravans I service have the plastic on the spare tire under the cover, no air in them and quite often well past their useful service life of 5 years. Just what you need after a blow out in the middle of no where without service. If you are lucky you might have a super cheap $20 compressor to burn out trying to pump up a 17 inch tyre from a cigarette socket.

i think preventative maintenance has been forgotten nowadays.

 

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

32 minutes ago, ClintonB said:

and quite often well past their useful service life of 5 years.

How true is that "5 years"? Were there scientific tests done revealing tyres are dangerous after 5 years?. It's just that I've had tyres on my vehicles much longer than that, and they still seemed to be ok.

Edited yesterday at 05:27 AM by Grumpy Old Nasho

[ClintonB]

Seems to be about useful life of light truck tyres, I see a lot disintegrating or blowing out randomly after that age. Tyre shops won’t touch a tyre for refit to a rim after 5, not meant to be sold after 2 years from made date.

saying that my boat trailer tyres went for 25, but no weight and only slow trips down to the creek.

under inflation doesn’t help either. There is no law, but following the advise usually pays off.

a lot of customers have come back and said they wish they had listened when I advised them on their docket to look at replacing, then went on to damage their caravan from blowouts, sometimes writing them off from damage that occurred.

the $100 14” light truck tyre seem cheap in hindsight.

Go RV magazine on line published a good article on this 18 months ago.