Fixing a flat!

[Harry Moon]

Originally Posted by Phil Waterman

Hi Harry

Knock on wood I've never had a flat on the road with any of the CMPs that I knew about. Discovered on all three trucks that original tires did not hold air but then again with the run flat tires didn't even know.

Without the tire irons there would not be much chance of changing a tube or patching one. But with them rims clean and painted I've had pretty good luck braking the beads free with a pair of tire irons to just keep walking around the tire a couple of times and the rim comes free.

So did you have the tire irons and brake the tire down on the side of the road or change to the spare?

Cheers Phil

Nope. Just pulled the 2 half's apart like in the picture, put the wood block on one side, pulled the tube and liner out of the middle, moved the block to the other side and pull the tube and liner all the way out.
Reversing it I put the tube and liner in with the valve stem side first, clamped the valve stem loosely to the outside of its hole, pushed the tube and liner in half way round then remove the block and place it on the other side and finish feeding the tube and liner in the rest of the way.
i put some air in it at this point and move it around to settle it in place then take the block out and lay it all on its side. poke in from the middle with an old broom stick all the way round using the crowbar to lift the sides apart to save my digits. let all the air out and then make sure the half's coming together with a solid "ring" sound, metal to metal no pinched rubber .
Tighten up the red bolts to torque, blow the dirt off and touch up the red paint.
Never break the bead.
My flat history.
1 Fathers day in the park we were parked next to/on the old farm house foundations that had burned down. That is except the nails.
2 and 3 were caused by the commercial truck outfit I went to out of town when I bought those directional tires. They caught the liner and tube between the 2 half's and between a year and two years they went down like a fire hose! after the second one I took the other 3 apart and a third one had the liner but not the tube pinched. (Do it yourself if you want it done right!)
4 was the cheep Chinese replacement tube I had to buy to fix number 3 above on the road (end of the day i did have a spare) I had a patch kit but a 2 foot rip was a little to much so now I carry good quality spare tubes.