First flat tire!!

[VFRhugh]

Had my first flat tire today. I noticed something wrong a couple of driveways down the street. By the time I got back in my home the tire was off the outside bead. I'd seen a YouTube in the past where a guy changed a tube with the wheel on the car. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get the tire and tube off the rim. I'm used to changing motorcycle tires but this is my first experience with a non-beadlock rim with such a deep center section. Tire came off easy. My leak was caused by rust near the valve stem area. The biggest problem was finding a tire shop that could fix a tube. I wire brushed the wheel and sprayed a little paint on the bare metal. The whole episode only took an hour. I'll be carrying a spare tube and patch kit in the future.
The adventure continues,
Hugh

[H. L. Chauvin]

Acquiring tire flats were so very common as late as the 1950's on old gravel roads.

Poor people for years during horse & buggy days had demolished old buildings for the lumber, then transported the lumber, (full of nails about to fall out), in an old mule or horse drawn cart.

The cart floor planks were not always tight fitting; hence, nails fell on the roads.

With limited people who owned cars with tires and inner tubes back then, there were never enough cars to pick up all of the nails with rubber tires thus allowing many nails to remain on the gravel road's surface, and allowing many to acquire flats.

Some highway departments much later had large magnets to pick up nails on gravel roads; some did not.

It was so common to see cars jacked up "on" the highway, while the car owner was either putting on his spare tire, or repairing the tube in his flat tire because his spare tire with tube was already flat.

In hill country, with blind spots on the other side of the hill, cautious drivers would slow down when approaching a hilltop for fear of a jacked up car on the other side of the hill.

[DaWizard]

Now days with the flatbed gated construction trucks and all the loose nails hopping about in the bed, it is known that in and around railroad crossings there are plenty of abandoned nails.

The odds of getting a flat due to nails increase around these crossings when there is construction near by.

[H. L. Chauvin]

FWIW:

It may help somewhat to be aware that some tubeless tires designed today can sometimes do very well to pick up a few nails off of drives & highways and never leak.

However, for Model A newbies, who are new to experiencing flexible rubber tubes in Model A tires, please be aware that tubes in Model A tires will survive a highway nail about as well as a hydrogen birthday balloon that was accidentally placed next to a dart board .... and was softly hit by only one (1) single dart.

[mhsprecher]

My late ex-father-in-law used to talk about a trip he made from central New Hampshire to Boston in his Model T around the end of WWII, a trip of about 120 miles. He had 14 flat tires along the way. After the last flat, he forgot and left his tire changing tools on the running board, losing them on the last leg of the trip home. The flats were probably due more to the state of his tires during the wartime rationing than the roads, but it is a good story nonetheless.

[Jacksonlll]

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I'm surprised that your tube survived. I had a flat this fall and by the time I got off the road, the tube was chewed up. I always carry a new tube and have a bicycle tube repair kit in the garage.

[kenparker]

One of my many flats in / on my28 pickup. I was a member of the Golden Triangle Model A Ford Club and we were on a tour to a museum somewhere in southwest Louisiana. Somewhere close to the Texas Louisiana border Ken had a flat on his right rear tire. The whole tour group stopped to "help". Those ahead of me even circled back to get involved. No time for a jack and knowing me I would not have a jack in the truck anyway. Four guys lifted the rear end of the truck while I changed the wheel and tire. Then off again to the museum.

If I remember correctly it was a train museum in Dequincy Louisiana, then to a fish resestuarant in Kinder, La. Coming out of the restaurant with a belly full of fish, Kens truck has another flat tire. Soon after that trip I had no choice but to get better tires, but perish the thought of spending the money for new ones.

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

A 1/2 X 9/16" open end wrench was the STRANGEST thing I ever found rattling around INSIDE a tire!
It "seems" like the front tire launches an object & it goes into the rear one, like a BULLET!
Bill Hateflats

[barnstuf]

VFRhugh said his flat tire was caused by rust near the inner tube valve and my first thought was does he have a rim liner on the wheel. You absolutely need rim liners to prevent chafing of the tube on the wheel.

[JOHN CT]

I went to a local car show. Mostly hot rods. A few friends with Model As decided to take a ride, stop for ice cream and stop by the show. Well I was the last person to leave with a A. I pulled out of the parking lot and BANG a flat on the LR. No problem get the jack out start jacking. In the back ground I here hot rods leaving the show and as they drive by. I heard things like that sucks, somebody having a shi... y day. But not one person offered to help or if I needed anything!! I think that was the last hot rod show I went to!! Sad

[ursus]

Originally Posted by JOHN CT

I went to a local car show. Mostly hot rods. A few friends with Model As decided to take a ride, stop for ice cream and stop by the show. Well I was the last person to leave with a A. I pulled out of the parking lot and BANG a flat on the LR. No problem get the jack out start jacking. In the back ground I here hot rods leaving the show and as they drive by. I heard things like that sucks, somebody having a shi... y day. But not one person offered to help or if I needed anything!! I think that was the last hot rod show I went to!! Sad

Nowadays, a lot of the hot rod guys may not even know how to change a tire - they just call AAA.

[Synchro909]

Originally Posted by ursus

Nowadays, a lot of the hot rod guys may not even know how to change a tire - they just call AAA.

My first thought also.

[Alaska Jim]

Not all of us hot rod guys are ass h-----. I would have stopped. may not have been much help, as I don't carry much in the way of tools, but I do know how to patch a tire and change one.

[JOHN CT]

Originally Posted by ursus

Nowadays, a lot of the hot rod guys may not even know how to change a tire - they just call AAA.

Originally Posted by Synchro909

My first thought also.

Your right they would call AAA
some of the car people here don't work on their own cars. The body's look great but the mechanics of them are scary no brakes no lights They drive them to death then sell them off.

[Jason in TX]

You might consider putting a "rubber band" around the rim to keep the tube from rubbing any other rough spot in that old wheel. The tire shop makes them by cutting an old inner tube into calamari like rings. Then you stretch it over with all of your might and hope you never have to remove it. haha.