Ten flat tires in one year! My tale of woe follows.
The wife and I got married 30 April, last year. We took a rental car on our honeymoon trip, and it's a good thing, because her old Ford Escort blew a head gasket and my truck's engine gave up just as soon as we got back. The truck has over 300,000 on it and drank a lot of oil, so no surprise there. Daddy was already rebuilding a new engine for me. Of course the Escort was no surprise - it's a Ford.
A friend loaned me her truck; it's her second car and she loans it out a lot. We were driving her back home in a light rain, when the tires locked up and I rear-ended a guy. Now the loaner car from my dad was inop, so we were back to one car. I drove my wife all the way across St. Louis County every morning, and then back to my job which was ten minutes away from the house. Of course I had to make the same trip in reverse every night; all four trips in rush-hour traffic. I had to have the truck for work, so there was no way to do things the other way. Fortunately, gas prices were lower back then. We found a gem of a little old Buick later on, so we were happy again.
Then a rear tire on the loaner truck went ABSOLUTELY DEAD FLAT. With all lug nuts removed, the wheel refused to budge - rusted on. Penetrants and brute force were of no avail, but it finally came off when I put the lug nuts back on, loosely, and drove it forward a few feet. Except that with characteristic absent-mindedness,
I forgot to put the lug nuts on at all! So, the wheel fell off almost completely. Amazingly, the threads were only slightly damaged, so I was able to crank the nuts back on when I got the spare installed. With some help from Daddy, and his tap and die set, the threads cleaned up nicely, and we were now in good shape. I got a used tire as a replacement. I had the loaner truck for several months until mine was ready again. I have great friends, no?
When I got the GMC back from good old Dad, he told me the tires were shot. So I went on down to the local grease-monkey shop and got a set of four used tires that looked alright. So far, they have been. But they kept coming unglued! It seems my aluminum rims had some manner of corrosion or corruption or some such that prevented a good seal. One by one, they all went ABSOLUTELY DEAD FLAT, until eventually, all of them were re-glued. I could park my truck for twenty minutes, with one of the tires turned the wrong way, and come back to find a completely flat tire where an inflated one had been before. But eventually, all these problems were ironed out.
Then about two months ago, we noticed a severe vibration in the Buick's steering wheel. Bubble on the tire, counseled Daddy, and indeed it was so. Big, obvious, couldn't miss it. Replaced that one with another used tire. We're up to six flat tires now.
At this point, the truck's 300,000 mile plus transmission goes out. Just as I had loaded it up with someone's furniture to help them move, it decided it didn't want to go anywhere. Off-loaded the stuff and we call Daddy. The wife picked me up and we went to buy some 1/2" drills. Went to the gun store to kill time until Daddy arrived. We meet back at the truck and Daddy has his tow bar, and I my drill. After making some holes in the bumper, we attach the tow-bar and Dad tows us back home. Quite a sight, that. A rusty, dishevelled old '55 Chevy flatbed towing a nice, shiny '89. Then it took an even older Ford tractor to get it up the gravel driveway and into Daddy's shop. My Daddy has neat old toys. But he doesn't have the tools needed to rebuild a transmission, so he had to trade it for a rebuild which he installed. Back to the old routine of taking the wife to work and picking her up again, though with better gas mileage this time.
Meanwhile, the wife and I went down into the country to camp out for our anniversary. She wanted to camp out somewhere near our gun club's range, so we could shoot. No lie - magnificent woman. We were almost there when we had a blowout and had to pull over. A twisty, hilly road, with very little shoulder, and we had no time to find a driveway or parking lot. The little Century was packed to the gills, but the whole trunk had to be emptied to get to the donut. When we got back on the road, after repacking the trunk, we took it to a dealership just down the road and had to shell out for a brand new tire. On Friday afternoon, in unfamiliar territory, with shooting light fading, we needed to get on the road as soon as possible.
The camping trip was another disaster, involving rain, sickness, frustration and the gun I had just bought, which it turned out I had seriously damaged - through an honest and understandable mistake on my part.
At this point, I was ready to replace the remaining tires before they also blew out. But before I got around to it - another blow-out, another tire ABSOLUTELY DEAD FLAT! This time I had two more used tires put on, and everything should have been fine. But there was a curious rattling noise. Daddy diagnosed it as a shot harmonic balancer, and replaced it with a minimum of trouble. The next few days, we noticed another vibration in the steering wheel, and a sound like something clunking forward and back under inertia. Daddy loosened the right front cradle to get to the balancer, and forgot to snug it back up!
Tonight we had one more ABSOLUTELY DEAD FLAT tire; bad valve stem. My wife wanted to change it, so I drove out there and coached her through her first time. Felt like a heel everytime someone drove by.
The good news is that a tire shop fixed it for free, and we got to skip the dorky Bible college choir that was invading our Wed. night church service. I am not a fan of Southern Gospel.
Anyway, thanks for letting me vent, and how was your day?
