Flat tire

One has to be careful when driving on rocky forest service roads - even with good tires.  I had a flat tire this Wednesday afternoon.  The first one I ever had on the pickup.  It was a learning experience how to change a tire on this vehicle.

The spare tire is under the pickup and one has to use a long handle through the bumper to turn a mechanism to unwind a cable that lowers the tire.  Years ago a recall gave us Chevy owners a flexible piece that makes up the handle.   The flexible piece was needed as the metal piece on the end would not allow us to reach the turning mechanism.  A puzzling problem was that the directions called for assembling three pieces to make up the handle, with the last piece being the new flexible piece.  Sounds easy, but either I was flustered or the new flexible piece was touchy about how it was snapped to another piece.  I found I only needed two pieces snapped together to reach the mechanism.

Once the spare tire was lowered I was thankful to find it had air.  11 years under the pickup is a long time.  The tire wasn't fully inflated, but it had plenty of air.

I had to lay on a dusty rocky road on a hot sunny day to set the jack under the rear axle and turn it to raise the flat tire off the ground.   There were plenty of rocks to put against the other wheels to keep the pickup from rolling.  I used the jack handle to dig out a few rocks in the road poking me as I lay.

I went to my local Les Schwab tire center to have the flat tire fixed.  I discovered a former neighbor now works there.  Her husband is now working in the North Dakota oil fields.   Les Schwab fixed my flat for free.   The hole was an "X" which indicates a sharp rock caused it.

Yesterday I fixed a flat tire on my bicycle.  Today the pickup.  Tomorrow?

Hungry Horse Dam