Carlisle was Great.
Everything was going great on the trip home until....there are two 5 mile stretches on the PA pike where the suggested speed limit is 55 mph due to the twisty up and down road conditions. so I'm hammering through the second section at 65-70 when wham! sounded and felt like I hit something in left front. I slowed up a bit and car felt ok. My son undid his belt, rolled down the window and stuck his head out to look at the RF tire. He said it looked normal. About 15 seconds after that BANG! something hit the passenger side floor and there was a little vibration. I immediately braked hard and pulled over to the right berm. Yep, RF was flat. Must have run something over, stuck in the tire and finally flew out and hit the floor. Couldn't pick a worse place to have a blowout if I tried.
Uh oh! While lying under the car during the thrash I had made a mental note to check my spare tire pressure as it's been a while. Of course with so many things to do I had forgotten soon after. Was the spare flat too? We had to move a lot of stuff from the trunk to the weeds to find out. I pulled the hardboard spare cover up and put my thumb on the sidewall. Whew, it was holding air though soft.
The blown tire was still seated on both beads and a quick inspection revealed no hole.
A little history on the spare. When I bought this car about 5 years ago, it had been in storage since 1982 and the owner had 4 brand new unmounted 13" mud and snow tires stored with it; they still had the tits on the tread. The guy that flipped the car to me had them already mounted when I bought it from him and had it shipped from NB. It was one of those tires that was in the spare trunk well. A M&S tire dated 1981 on a upper 80 degree day hammering on the PA turnpike is not the best situation. Tire pressure was 20PSI. Good enough for now. Another thing I meant to bring was a cigarette lighter tire pump I had just bought about 2 weeks ago. Because the car was not at my house, I never quite got around to throwing it in my spares box in the trunk.
Anyway, I took out the scissor jack, crank and the breaker bar with 3/4" socket. The car was too low to slip the jack under the side rail so I tried the LCA. Almost fit! I had Kevin lift at the wheel lip and cranked her up. We had it changed in no time. Threw everything back in the trunk, waited for a break in traffic and headed down the road at a reduced speed. My son was worried because he could feel a difference in the car but he worries too much. So I cruised at 55MPH about 5 miles to the next service plaza.
Free air! Pumped it up to 30, took a little break. I also put some air in the blown tire while it was in the well but I heard it leaking out so we had no spare spare tire. I said we had 2 options. One, travel at a reduced speed so the old antiquated snow tire would hold together. Or two, get off the pike and take secondary roads at 50 MPH. If something happened we'd be off the pike and maybe could get some service. Yeah right, finding a 14" tire in rural PA on a Sunday afternoon. Ha! Speed limit was 70 so we went back on the pike at 60 MPH.
Meanwhile we could see on the phone weather map that there was a big yellow storm front in Ohio. I thought it would be pretty lucky if we could at least make it that far people would be driving slower and the rain water would keep the tire cool. Just like Chuck Berry's rain keeping his motor cool in Maybelline.
So we cruised home at 60 through the rain that eased up right before his house. His wife and 2 and 4 year olds were in the front yard when we rolled in about 4:30. Seeing my 2 grandkids all excited when they spotted us made it all worthwhile.
See ya all next year. EARLY! Already made motel reservations.
Everything was going great on the trip home until....there are two 5 mile stretches on the PA pike where the suggested speed limit is 55 mph due to the twisty up and down road conditions. so I'm hammering through the second section at 65-70 when wham! sounded and felt like I hit something in left front. I slowed up a bit and car felt ok. My son undid his belt, rolled down the window and stuck his head out to look at the RF tire. He said it looked normal. About 15 seconds after that BANG! something hit the passenger side floor and there was a little vibration. I immediately braked hard and pulled over to the right berm. Yep, RF was flat. Must have run something over, stuck in the tire and finally flew out and hit the floor. Couldn't pick a worse place to have a blowout if I tried.
Uh oh! While lying under the car during the thrash I had made a mental note to check my spare tire pressure as it's been a while. Of course with so many things to do I had forgotten soon after. Was the spare flat too? We had to move a lot of stuff from the trunk to the weeds to find out. I pulled the hardboard spare cover up and put my thumb on the sidewall. Whew, it was holding air though soft.
The blown tire was still seated on both beads and a quick inspection revealed no hole.
A little history on the spare. When I bought this car about 5 years ago, it had been in storage since 1982 and the owner had 4 brand new unmounted 13" mud and snow tires stored with it; they still had the tits on the tread. The guy that flipped the car to me had them already mounted when I bought it from him and had it shipped from NB. It was one of those tires that was in the spare trunk well. A M&S tire dated 1981 on a upper 80 degree day hammering on the PA turnpike is not the best situation. Tire pressure was 20PSI. Good enough for now. Another thing I meant to bring was a cigarette lighter tire pump I had just bought about 2 weeks ago. Because the car was not at my house, I never quite got around to throwing it in my spares box in the trunk.
Anyway, I took out the scissor jack, crank and the breaker bar with 3/4" socket. The car was too low to slip the jack under the side rail so I tried the LCA. Almost fit! I had Kevin lift at the wheel lip and cranked her up. We had it changed in no time. Threw everything back in the trunk, waited for a break in traffic and headed down the road at a reduced speed. My son was worried because he could feel a difference in the car but he worries too much. So I cruised at 55MPH about 5 miles to the next service plaza.
Free air! Pumped it up to 30, took a little break. I also put some air in the blown tire while it was in the well but I heard it leaking out so we had no spare spare tire. I said we had 2 options. One, travel at a reduced speed so the old antiquated snow tire would hold together. Or two, get off the pike and take secondary roads at 50 MPH. If something happened we'd be off the pike and maybe could get some service. Yeah right, finding a 14" tire in rural PA on a Sunday afternoon. Ha! Speed limit was 70 so we went back on the pike at 60 MPH.
Meanwhile we could see on the phone weather map that there was a big yellow storm front in Ohio. I thought it would be pretty lucky if we could at least make it that far people would be driving slower and the rain water would keep the tire cool. Just like Chuck Berry's rain keeping his motor cool in Maybelline.
So we cruised home at 60 through the rain that eased up right before his house. His wife and 2 and 4 year olds were in the front yard when we rolled in about 4:30. Seeing my 2 grandkids all excited when they spotted us made it all worthwhile.
See ya all next year. EARLY! Already made motel reservations.
