Sunday, July 6, 2014

I Changed a Tire Today. In a Parking Lot. At a Gas Station. By Myself. It Was Awesome.

This is the E30.  My son took this shot.  This one will eventually belong only to my son, which means I have to find one of my own.  Has to be a 5 speed.  I love this car.  I love driving this car.  It makes driving fun, instead of a chore that has to be done.

That having been said, I should add that today I took my younger son to a college for four days while he learns how to be a drum major.  Pretty cool stuff.  It was sort of far away.  I drove him in the E30.  

There has been a slow leak in one of the tires for several weeks.  We have this happen a lot.  We just check it regularly and keep the air up.  Today we put air in it before our journey.  I figured that should do it, and away we went.  I was all emotional after dropping my son off at Drum Major school.  It wasn't that I was sad he would be gone, it felt so damn much like college, that I got a bit emotional.

I made it back to Lancaster and someone told me from another car that I should check my tire, that it was "dangerously" low.  SHIT...  I pull off at a gas station in town.  I went inside to buy a drink and get quarters.  First piece of advice, always have a stash of quarters in any vehicle.  It costs a dollar now to put air in your tire.  A fucking dollar, and it HAS to be quarters.  So..  keep a stash, that is just smart.  Store clerks are not happy to hand out quarters, especially if you don't buy anything.

So, I put air in the tire.  If you don't know the PSI of your tires, (Pressure, how much air it should have) it is written on the tire, usually it is around 33 or so.  There is a little stick that pops up when you are putting air in.  This is usually somewhere on the air gun that you are using to fill your tire.This tells you your PSI.  When mine got high enough, I put the hose back and noticed a hiss..  as though the machine were still running.  No, FUCK..  that is air, coming OUT of the damn tire.  FUCK.  

I have been shown how to change a tire.  There is also a book in the car about mechanical stuff on that car.  I got out my phone, and that book and I opened the trunk and I fucking got down to it.  No one is going to help me.  I am changing this fucking tire, right here in this parking lot...  Alone.  

This is a great informational video on how to do it.  Best bet?  Next time someone you know changes a tire, ask to help...

I laid down on the burning asphalt on my back and slid under the car so that my kid could tell me where to place the Jack..  Step 2..  always know where your jack is, and always know where to put it if you need to jack up your car.  Also, I need to add that usually the spare tire is bolted into the trunk.  It is really easy to get out..  but you have to unscrew a thing.

Now, I got the jack ready because I was already on the ground.  Before you jack the car you have to loosen the bolts that are holding your tire on.  This requires a tire iron and muscle.  I got all but one.  The man that "helped" me got that one loose.  The others were all me.  Then, you raise the car with the jack.  Make sure you have it at the right spot, and boom..  crank that sucker up.

Now, use your hands, or the tire iron to get the lug nuts the rest of the way out.  When you are messing with lug nuts always do it like a star, because tires are heavy and if you loosen it too much on one side it could be tricky to get the tire off.

Now, take off the bad tire.  This wasn't too hard.  Putting the new one on?  Different story.  It was really heavy so I had to put it on my foot and use my foot as a lever to hold the tire up while I lined up the holes.  The good news is, once you get one lug nut in place, the others are easy.  Again, go in a star formation.

There is only so much that you can tighten while the car is jacked up because the tire turns.  Star pattern, get them on as tight as you can, using the tire iron.  Then let the jack down and I jumped on the tire iron so that I could make sure they were really on there.  I figured my fat ass counted as some torque.


This was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be.  I can barely move and I most certainly really hurt myself (my fibro anyway), but HOT DAMN I did that shit..  by myself.

If I can do that.  All of you, any of you..  every single one of you can do anything.

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