What I'm finding odd about this discussion is there being a need to do it with car tyres in the first place. The situation I've always been used to is that everywhere that sells tyres has one of those stand tools, and taking the knackered tyre off the wheel and putting the new one on is part of the service. So the need to put them on yourself never normally arises. You can buy the tyres loose to put them on yourself, but you'll get funny looks, it isn't any cheaper, and next to nobody does it because the number of situations where it actually makes things easier instead of massively more difficult is minute.
Well, in my case, it was an OLD car (78 MGB) with one tire that wouldn't hold air; wouldn't pump up at all. And I don't know where the spare tire got off to.
I think David was talking about FARM machinery from back when he was growing up on a farm.
I didn't want to buy a new tire because I still don't know if I'm ever going to be able to restore the car, but I needed that tire to hold air long enough for me to drag it out of my basement, around the house & up the hill to where the tow dolly was sitting & get the car strapped to the tow dolly so I could tow it out to where it's going to sit until I can decide what I can do with it.
Years ago, when I first got the MGB, I had the tools & was able to repair a tire (tube) on the side of the road by getting the tube out & patching it.
When I tried to do that just recently, I discovered I no longer have the upper body strength to get the tire RE-seated using hand tools. After several places I tried refused to put a tube inside the tire I had to do it myself. I was able subsequently find a place that would RE-seat the tire once I had the tube inside it.
Indeed, taking the wheels off the car and putting them back on is also usually part of the service too. But that is an aspect where doing it yourself instead can realistically make things easier. They do up the nuts with an air impact wrench and hold it on going ga-dga-dgadgadgadga while the nut creeps round the last sixth of a turn or so, with the likely result that if you need to change the wheel at the side of the road you'll find yourself unable to get it to turn back. So I have been known to do things like jacking the car up in the road outside the tyre place, taking all four wheels off one by one and carrying them in one at a time to get the new tyre put on. You get funny looks for that as well.
It's part of the service if you can take the car in to the tire store to have the work done. IF you have a flat tire and don't want to destroy a $500 tire, you can't run it flat however many miles it takes to get to the tire store.
Fortunately I HAVE found it NOT to be true that the impact wrench puts the lug nuts on so tightly you can't get them off, since I've had to change a tire a couple of times in the last few years (and fortunately had a spare tire to change it with).
The [ina] ga-dga-dgadgadgadga [da vita] tool just makes sure the lug nuts are tightened to the specified torque which CAN be undone manually (you may need a cheater bar and have to jump up and down on the handle, but ...)
I am immensely glad that my mobility scooter, with its very small and chunky tyres, has split rims, so all I need to do is undo four bolts and the wheel comes apart. Despite the chunkiness of the tyres they still pick up punctures like bicycles, so I need to do that quite often.
I have the split rims on my hand truck & the dolly I have for moving my little utility trailer too & fro when hooking it behind the Jeep.
But, the other problem I had with that though was when the hand-truck went flat during my move, the inner tube I needed wasn't in stock, so I had to rob one of the wheels from the trailer dolly.
...
I'm past the MOVING phase now and into the UNPACKING phase. I have some problems that must be corrected SOON, and still have to begin unloading furniture from the POD. I have to get some additional cabinets & counter installed in the kitchen & I'm going to need to get an electrician in to wire outlets so I can plug in my small kitchen appliances.
Kitchen only has 6' of counter space - with the sink in the middle - and a single GFI outlet serving it for small appliances ... and the electrician will have to replace the GFI when he comes in to install the other outlets.
]]>One of the things I am finding strange about this discussion of changing car tyres is that I have heard no comments about the need to then balance the wheel/tyre combo after fitting/changing tyres (by spinning the wheel up on a special machine and then fitting weights to appropriate places on the rims). Not doing this extra step often results in vibrations and steering issues when the car is ravelling at highway speeds.
"Fitting and balancing" is normally included in the price of purchasing sets of tyres back here is Aotearoa NZ. Sounds like this is not a requirement - or standard practise - back in the northern hemisphere.
Well, again - in the special case I was dealing with here, the tire only has to hold up for a couple hundred feet.
Back in the day, when I was making roadside repairs, the balance would suffice until the tire could be taken into a shop.
]]>Ah, you don't do it like that. You get a cheap set of manky old wheels from the scrappie. Then you don't have to worry about them getting further mankified by corrosion from road salt and the like. You keep the good wheels for the summer when they won't be covered in crud all the time.
]]>That's the party line, but the practice is to tighten them as much as they can get away with to make dead sure they don't loosen themselves. Being unable to get them off is a common complaint, stereotypically ascribed to women, but I've been asked to loosen his immovable nuts by a bloke who was quite a bit bigger than me... I don't know what torque they'd been done up to but it was a lot more than any figure it would have said in the book.
]]>The typical crossover point between the grip vs. temperature curves for "winter" and "summer" rubber formulations comes somewhere around 8°C, from memory, and the difference is "large" when you get to about 8° either side of that. So it covers the band of typical UKish temperatures nicely. However as you say the ability to deal with wet roads is far more significant, and usually swamps the effect, so the temperature aspect still manages to elude most people's attention entirely.
]]>I have had the problem you mention in the previous post, including bracing a cross-spanner and jumping on it.
]]>A warning. If he wires to code he'll need to put in a second circuit. Maybe. Code these days requires 2 breakered circuits to a kitchen. Both fully GFCI. And independent circuits for appliances such as a fridge. You might need to listen to him turn down the job but tell you how to do what you need. Wink Wink Nod Nod.
]]>That's what I would have done "back in the day". But...
With cars in the US (North America?) made in the last 10-20 years steel wheels with the correct bolt pattern, rim size, and rim width may not exist. Blame it on profits or the need to meet CAFE standards or whatever. The issue is real.
]]>Kitchen only has 6' of counter space - with the sink in the middle - and a single GFI outlet serving it for small appliances ... and the electrician will have to replace the GFI when he comes in to install the other outlets.
A warning. If he wires to code he'll need to put in a second circuit. Maybe. Code these days requires 2 breakered circuits to a kitchen. Both fully GFCI. And independent circuits for appliances such as a fridge. You might need to listen to him turn down the job but tell you how to do what you need. Wink Wink Nod Nod.
I'm kind of already past that point. I found out why one outlet didn't have a ground ... the idiots that did the electrical [EXPLETIVE!! DELETED!!] work just cut off the ground wires at one of the outlets.
The circuit is Panel -> outlet 1 (refrigerator) -> outlet 2 (breakfast nook?) - outlet 3 where the idiots cut off the ground wires -> outlet 4 (GFI above the counter). The GFI doesn't work because there AIN'T NO GROUND!!!
Somebody's gonna' have to crawl under the house, rip out the old "NEW" wiring and replace it.
I'm pissed off about that, but that's the way it is & I'm just going to have to suck it up and pay for it.
I made sure to keep a bit of reserve to cope with the expected [& UN-expected] problems (I won't say how much, but I think it should be adequate).
The kitchen is HUGE 20 ft long x 10 ft wide with all the appliances, cabinets & counter at one end, the washer/dryer hookup in the middle and the refrigerator at the far end.
Whoever "designed" the layout was an idiot and the "workmen" who installed it were worse - stove with microwave overhead are right up against the wall and there's no spacer, so the microwave door will only open part way.
I'm probably going to have to rip out those cabinets & reinstall them to add a spacer. But THAT can wait for now because it's semi-functional; just an aggravation.
I've got to add cabinets & counter space (another 6 ft) on the far side of the kitchen where the refrigerator is & I'll need to add another circuit to have outlets there (so my small appliances can plug in) and that will cover the necessary second circuit with GFI.
I can do most of that work myself & have the electrician make the connection at the panel.
]]>I've seen ground wires attached to metal work boxes before, if that was done, it'll be partially obscured by the existing receptacle, you might want to check for that. A short jumper to the outlet may be all that's needed. Best of luck.
It's all "PVC Old Work" (cut-in) boxes & Type NM-B nonmetallic (Romex) cable and I can see the stub where the [EXPLETIVE!! DELETED!!] idiot CUT THE GROUND WIRES COMPLETELY OFF when stripping the outer jacket off the Romex.
I've done electrical work in the past. I have enough experience to recognize what they did. Once I was able to identify the circuit, I disconnected & taped off the hot wire at the panel so I can work on the outlets & boxes, because some of the boxes are not anchored to the drywall.
I'm going to have to yank some of the boxes out to get to the wiring (and replace them because the anchor tabs are lost).
I can probably do that much. It's the crawling around under the house that's going to be the problem. I'm not as agile as I was when I was younger. When I rewired my old house after Hurricane Fran (in 1996 - replacing 1930s vintage wiring) I had the advantage of a full size stand-up basement to work in.
I just hope I don't have to do too much drywall repair or rip out walls behind the appliances in the kitchen to get to the wiring.
There are other problems I have identified that I'm not even going to think about touching. I know the limits of my competence and I will hire a professional electrician to fix those parts.
]]>He's going to send me an estimate for the added circuit I need to complement the additional new cabinets & counters I'm going have to install to make the kitchen fully functional. I'll have room for my small appliances & I'll be able to have them plugged in.
I've also begun setting up my home network. I have the router tied into the modem & my network printer & NAS are functioning properly. Still have to string cables to tie in my Photoshop computer & the file server where I store my images (semi-backup).
I'm finally going to be able to move my scanners over to the Photoshop computer so I can import scanned image files directly instead of having to scan them here & copy them over to the Photoshop computer.
I still have to figure out how to set up an on-line storage account for a REAL backup and I should be all set.
Also have to get set up for my Mac Mini & iMac so I can use them.
]]>Also, I'm a big fan of Backblaze. If you don't want them then at least read this article.
]]>My curiosity got the better of me so I now the town where you moved. They have Ting fiber internet service. Everyone I know who has it LOVES it. Which I can't say about any of the other providers. Their business plan is to avoid the major cities and towns for now and hit up the edges of tech areas. Just an FYI.
I'm not actually "in town" and I checked Ting just now and it's not available for my address. Apparently Spectrum Cable is the ONLY thing available here (unless you go with satellite TV/internet), but it IS available and it's at least as good as what I had living IN Raleigh.
Also, I'm a big fan of Backblaze. If you don't want them then at least read this article.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/ars-archivum-top-cloud-backup-services-worth-your-money/4/
Backblaze was recommended by someone else I know as well. I do think that's what I'm going to go with for off-site backup.
I just have to finish hooking up my home network HERE before I sign up & try to figure out how to make it work with my setup.
I think the move is going to work out OK, but I have A LOT OF WORK still to do getting settled in, and a bunch of other shit has been going on at the same time.
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