Something Every Woman Should Be Able To Do
For the last month or so, one of the tires on our van has been slowly losing air. It needed to be reinflated once a week. Obviously, our construction-site-of-a-home has nicely contributed a nail to the aforementioned tire. I can’t take it somewhere to be fixed, because Chad can’t stand to pay someone to do something he can do himself. Just a mention of the shop sends him into fits. I’ve nagged him to fix it off and on until he blows up about how he has a million things to do and doesn’t have time.
This is true.
However - I believe that it’s more important that we don’t die in a completely avoidable car accident via a blown tire that we knew needed to be fixed.
Maybe it’s just me - but whatever.
When we couldn’t drive the van to Noah’s football game today because the tire was low again, I decided that today I would fix my first tire. I watched him fix the last one, and I decided if he can do it, I can do it.
So today while Chad was working on the porch, I drove the van out back to his shed where all his tools are, determined to fix the tire.
This is the first time I learned to appreciate Chad’s impact wrench.
I have had to put a spare tire on to replace a flat tire in the middle of nowhere many times. It is a big struggle to get the lugnuts off with a wrench, and let me tell you - it is not easy. So today, how nice it was to have the impact wrench to quickly zip those things loose.
After the lugnuts were loosened, I attempted to jack the van up. I placed it under the van, pumped the jack, and nothing. After a few minutes of jacking with it (GrOaN) I went to get Chad. We found out that the jack is broken.
Although I don’t want to buy a new jack, I have to admit I was happy it wasn’t just my stupidity keeping the jack from working.
I banished Chad from the area after that. He reluctantly left, looking worried over his shoulder as he walked away.
After jacking up the van with the stow away jack in the back of the van, I removed the lugnuts and pulled the tire off the bolts. One thing I learned when changing a tire is don’t completely jack your car up before you’ve loosened the nuts, or it will spin while you’re messing with it.
I grabbed some 409 spray and started spraying the tire until I saw where the cleaner was bubbling up from the air coming out of the tire. That’s a neat little trick Chad showed me. It has to be a soapy substance that will bubble.
It took me 10 minutes to find the tire plug kit, and was only located after I asked Chad where he kept it. ugh. So far I’ve had to ask him twice about things.
Next step was to thread a piece of the sticky thread piece that I was going to be using to plug the hole into the tool you use to stick it into the hole.
With plyers, I pulled the nail out of the tire. The air was gushing now! Thank goodness that hadn’t happened while we were on the road. *shudder*
I took the rasp tool, a pointed, rough sided tool that you stick into the tire most of the way in, then yank out to roughen up the sides of the hole, and made the hole big enough for the plugging material. After that, I forced the plug 2/3 into the tire, then pulled it out while twisting quickly. The hole was now plugged!
After cutting off the excess plug material, I put the tire back on, aired it up, and drove back up to the house. Then realized I forgot the hub cap.
Grrrrrr.
So I had go back out to the shed, jack up the tire, reloosen the nuts, and put the hubcap back on. Then of course put the nuts back on.
So I did it! I fixed my first tire!
Ladies - we should all know how to do this. It’s very nice to know that I can get this done by myself. I must add that it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for new tires. The kit costs between $5 to $10 (although some can cost more) and fixes more than one tire. Most kits that I’ve seen contain 5 or more plugs.
Who knows - next time I may just tackle replacing break pads. They HAVE been starting to squeak a little…
