For some reason the first flat tires on the three brit cars I've owned
were all "special" experiences. I've already described my first Healey
flat: in the snow; in the middle of the night; with a useless jack. The
first experience with both my TD and Cobra weren't much better.
The first flat on the TD occurred a few weeks after I had new tires
installed. I noticed it while getting into the car after work one
evening. After a grown it was out with the little brit car lug wrench,
off with the little brit car spare. The first try at the lugnuts only
resulted in the whole wheel rotating even though the parking brake was
on. I pulled the parking brake lever back a couple more notches, and
slipped the gearbox into first gear. No wheel spin this time but the
lug wrench was now "pretzel" shaped. The goon at the tire store must
have set his impact wrench for about 800 ft-lbs. Grabbing up the lug
wrench, I started making the rounds of nearby service stations. At the
first place the attendant took a look at my wrench, laughed and said
something like "wat ya git fer buyun a ferun ker". His buddies thought
it was pretty hilarious too. Finally I found a more sympathetic place
and it did have a 4-way lug wrench that looked like it might fit. The
station manager was more than happy to lend it to me provided I left a
$10 deposit. Fortunately the size was close enough and with some
huffing and puffing and lots of banging I got the flat off and the spare
on. After the freeway grind from downtown LA back to the Valley I made
a quick trip to the automotive department at Sears and bought a
universal British car lug wrench. Sears used to sell all kindza stuff
like that. I even kept this tool for for use on my next brit car, a
solid disk wheeled Healey.
Thinking back on it, one flat each was all I ever had on both the TD and
the Healey. Don't know whether that was because solid rims inherently
have fewer flats than wire rims or if it was because I've owned the
Cobra over a longer period. I've certainly had plenty of flats on it.
Which brings me to the first Cobra flat. This happened very shortly
after I bought the car. I was on a little Sunday back roads drive when
I had to pull off because the car was handling "funny". Sure enough, the
left rear was flat. Fortunately I had just purchased a hefty knock-off
hammer a few days before (the car hadn't come with a hammer at all). No
problem removing the knock-off but the wheel was frozen to the spline.
I scrounged the area and found an old piece of two-by-four. I began by
beating and prying from the inside of the wheel with the wood. Not even
a slight budge. I tried holding the two-by-four against the wheel and
pounding on it with the hammer. No luck. I even tried a few timid taps
directly on the wheel itself but to no effect. Finally, I lowered the
car down onto the flat, put the knock-off on a few turns and started
hammering on the knock-off to try to break the wheel loose. At first I
put the wood against the knock-off to keep from marring it. After a few
minutes of this, the wood was completely splintered and the wheel was
still stuck. Finally I just started beating directly on the knock-off
itself. Pretty soon I was holding the hammer with both hands and
whacking as hard as I could. The place where I had pulled off the road
was an area of old abandoned buildings and the acoustics were kind of
weird. Every whack was followed by an echoing whack off in the
distance. The delay of the echo was so long (about a second) that I
thought that some wise ass was making fun of me by mocking my hammer
blows. But there wasn't anyone else around that I could see. I would
guess that it took a good 10 to 15 minutes of these mighty blows before
I finally saw the wheel start to budge a bit. At 1/2 " or so of
movement, I jacked the car up again and was able to "tap" the wheel the
rest of the way off. After liberally coating the hub and wheel splines
with oil from the dip stick, I put the spare on and was off.
But there's more. The next day, on my way to work I stopped at the
filling station where I normally bought gas, topped off the tank and ask
the youngish looking attendant if I could drop off my flat with him for
repair. Sure thing. Be ready by lunch time. Just to make sure, I
asked him if he did wire wheels. Oh yes. His machine was set up for
wire wheels. He did 'em all the time. So, off to work I went. When I
came back on my lunch break, the attendant practically ran out to the
street to meet me. Boy am I glad to see you he sez. I spent all
morning trying to get your tire off of the rim. Geez, it took me about
three hours. Did you get it fixed, I asked. Yeah, finally. As I was
paying him the $1.50 for repairing the tire he suggested I take my
business elsewhere in the future. Which I did. After that, whenever
I've had a flat, I've always took it to a a regular tire store for
repairs and I've always made doubly sure beforehand that they had the
proper equipment to handle the job.
This particular incident happened many years ago but it wasn't until
recently that I came to appreciate what that poor station attendant must
have gone through. My wheels are badly in need of cleaning up and
repainting so a while back I thought I would strip them down to the bare
metal, remove a few minor rim dings and reprint them. It wasn't long
before it became obvious that the only practical way to do this was to
completely disassemble the wheels and clean the rims, hubs and spokes
separately. Of course, this meant removing the tires first. No big
deal I figured. I used to do all my own tire repairs when I was in high
school and broke all of the time. I decided to experiment with the
spare. I started by trying to break the tire bead away from the rim
with a couple of large screw drivers. I didn't really expect this to
work but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. I soon gave up and went to
crowbars (I don't own a set of tire irons any more). I couldn't even
force an end in far enough to pry on. I tired hammering the crowbar
wedge in with progressively larger hammers 'til I got to the 5 lb
sledge. The bar just bounce back out after every blow. Finally it was
time to try my special tire breaking trick. I laid the wheel with tire
flat on the driveway and drove up on the tire part with my VW. First
with a lighter front wheel then with the heavier rear. Not the
slightest hint that the bead was ready to break. Time for the heavy
equipment. I tried my Dodge station wagon. Still nothing. On to
the Chevy van. Nada. Since the tire was old and rotted anyway, I
decided it wouldn't matter if it got destroyed in the process of
removal. I cut a neat little square hole next to the rim with a Stanley
knife. But the rubber at the rim bead was reinforced with many strands
of very heavy gauge wire. I started cutting them one by one. It seemed
like there were hundreds of them but there were probably only 15 or 20.
I tried cutting several at a time but just couldn't get enough "bite" on
more than one. After each cut wire, I had to pull and pry the next one
out far enough to get one end of the wire cutters under it. This whole
process probably took about 2 hours. When the time comes, I plan to pay
whatever it cost to have the rest of the tires dismounted.
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