Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have you ever changed a tire?

Yep, seems like every hunting season I have to change at least one. I need to quit buying crappy cheap brand All Terrain tires I guess..Or, quit driving really bad roads. It's no fun changing them...

My stepdaughter had to teach her (now) husband how to change a flat tire on his own car when they'd been together just a short time. Now they're married and she mows the lawn, takes out the trash and does about everything around the house you'd think a normal guy would do. He seems to be content cleaning house and doing laundry as his contribution. I shake my head in amazement daily with this guy - no interrest whatsoever in learning how to be a man.

Oh - I've changed plenty of tires...

Changed different kinds on different vehicles
Working on a mower tire today.
Could only find 1 tire iron and took a long
time to get the old one off and the new tire
back on the wheel. Too hot outside and never
could get the beads to seat. Try tomorrow
first thing before it gets to be 100

Changed a few, been a while. Taken tires off rims with hand tools too.

The last time was in an afternoon next to a busy highway after being pulled over by the police for a blood alcohol check - after passing the test, the cop pointed out that my front driver side tyre was flat, and it was seriously flat. What ever had punctured my tyre had left the scene before I got pulled over, letting the air to depart the tyre rather quickly.

My daughter's first vehicle was a pickup, standard 4 on the floor, she put new bumpers on it and changed out the radiator without me showing her how to. She also fought MMA for a while and is on a roller derby team.

After the the Coup in Ghana the leader of the coup, JJ Rawlings commandeered every truck in the country to get all the dried cocoa beans, them beginning to go bad in sacks piled up in villages all across the Region, to the ports for export. This was a big deal as cocoa was Ghana’s main export, the main source of foreign exchange.

A big ol’ semi truck with armed soldiers aboard rolls up the dirt road past our school, and loads up a bunch of our teenage male students to go load hundredweight (112lb) sacks of cocoa. So naturally the Obruni (White guy AKA me) went along too.

So we get to different villages and, sonuvawitch, turns out that skinny long-haired White guy can pick up and carry hundredweight sacks ( this was a long time ago). It should be understood this was Ghana, 1981, one of the friendliest place in Africa, so this was a typically laid-back sort of event, it ain’t like anyone was getting threatened or screamed at.

But at each stop, when the Obruni would pick up a sack or two, the soldiers at that place would insist that he should go drink some palm wine with them. This done in the usual fashion, seated in a circle around a big black clay pot, everyone taking turns with the same gourd bowl, except on these occasions the other people drinking were festooned with STEN (??) sub machine guns and long FNALs, I want to say I saw a couple of Hi-Powers too but that could be a false memory.

Pretty quick, instead of riding with the students, I was riding from village to village in the back a Chevy (I think) pickup truck driven by the older Officer running the show.

Lo and behold we get a flat, left rear. We jump out of the truck and the soldiers are all standing around at a loss. Of necessity most every place in the world, including Ghana, has great shade tree mechanics but none of them were standing around that particular pickup that day. Plus we had all been drinking a few rounds of palm wine.

WTF, I said, it’s just a flat, and hopped to it, locating the Jack and spare and quickly getting the deed done. They looked at me like I walked on water I have been drunk many times, including many times in Africa, but that was probably the most interesting.

Of course I have changed other flats before and after, but that was the only one in Africa.

Yes, daytime, dark, dark in the middle of no where......

Never fun......

I keep my AAA current.

You're all of 12 years age I bet!!

I have changed more tires than I care to think about, daylight, dark, snow rain, put chains on etc.
For a few years I worked as part of a pit crew for a buddy that raced, so I could not count the times I changed tires there.

I used to work in West Dayton Ohio... and lived west of their in New Lebanon.

West Dayton was a REAL CHITHOLE back then...

Coming to work at 5am- 6am once I saw an oldish sedan with a flat... older Asian couple...

I stopped to help. NOT a zone for older folks to be broken down... even at sunrise.

While I was changing their tire... they thanked me and the woman remarked that I had probably saved someone's life today.

Thinking she was a bit over-dramatic I kinda dismissed the comment.

After they were G2G... they thank me. She informed me they worked at the VA and her husband was a Cardiac surgeon and would be doing surgeries on Vets.

God puts things in every man's path.

Sometimes you help... and sometimes you do not... and sometimes a Glock is the correct answer.

Strange memories...

Thanks for the reflection.

And you and I and Rocky didn't have that luxury losing two tires on the same side 20+ miles down a "dirt" road full of quartz crystals a few years ago.

As recently as yesterday. When I was young I run a lot of recaps, I carried a 4 way lug wrench back then.

LOL...

Yepp...

Friends in WV have the 3/4" and 1" version of the Milwaukee for big equipment. Holy Smoke.

I have the $120/$165 Ryobi versions... just because I had lot of 6Ah batteries.

Night and Day difference how much an impact helps... ANY IMPACT...

Never use on an Isuzu Trooper... studs gall... no idea why, but common knowledge.

Yes - many times over the last 60 years+.. Last one was the FL tire on my previous F-350... Heavy beggar.. But nothing like those on my current F-450.. At my age, THAT'S gonna be a challenge..

I got so good at changing tires on campers that I could pull over, change it and be back on the road inside of 15 minutes..

Add a dolly, all types of trailers from 4' to 53', balers, and rakes to the list. Not only change the tire when flat, but replaced the tire on the rims for all except the skid steer.

Wrestling the tires around are enough, especially on the motorhome.

I go with Milwaukee because I gave away all my other gear so I just had a single brand battery to keep around.

Use to be 100% Porter Cable with battery tools until Dewalt bought them out and bastardized the product line to compete with other low end products.

Nothing has ever come close to the old Porter Cable battery powered tools but they were stupid exspensive.
Their entire line was built like that Milwaukee impact, lot's of metal involved, had some that worked hard on industrial jobs for 20+ years and never gave up.

You could disassemble the batteries and rebuilt them yourself.
Just loaded with rechargeable 'C' cells soldiered together, cases had easy to remove screws.

They don't want us doing that anymore, no money in it for them.

Copy that... Milwaukee is top shelf stuff and I concur with recommending it every time.

Ryobi is NOT... but I lucked into a pile of 6Ah batteries for a song... so I have lots of chitty Ryobi tools. Throwaways to be honest. Batteries and tools are a complex topic.

A funner question - have you ever had to use starter fluid to get a new tire to seat .. !!!

they make a pretty neat sound…

It’s a true test of you manliness the first time you have to do it. And fun as heck if you teach someone who have never heard of it before…

Extra points if you say - hold my beer !!