Marty's Travels

My house has wheels

Tire story for those that can take it

When I left Farmington I had a new tire and a newly fabricated axle, but lacked a spare wheel and tire. No problem, I’ll get a pair of new wheels and a tire in Deming. Now I’m sure that anyone that has followed this knows that me trying to get the distance of a typical western state without a spare is just asking for it.

I’m being careful as I move down the road and do a tire check whenever I stop. This involves a quick walk-around while I touch each tire and hub cap to measure the heat. I freely admit this has not ever uncovered any of the problems I subsequently had, but it makes me feel like I’m doing something.

This time I burned my fingers. One tire had a flat spot, about ten inches long and from edge to edge. And that flat spot was hotter than hell, much hotter than the rest of the tire.

Same thing next time I check. I keep going. Same thing again. Back on the freeway for Hatch. Next time there’s wire exposed, and cotton showing at the flat spot.

An hour and a half from Deming, and no spare. Then, I really did this: Grabbed a scissors and trimmed off the dangling wires and touched up the frayed cotton a bit. Back on the road. My thinking was this: The tire was coming apart, but at a rate that I extrapolated to show that I could reach Deming.

That thinking was totally wrong, of course, but I did make it without a blowout.

The tire in question was behind the wheel that went somewhere. What I think happened was the wheel that left got hung up momentarily on the behind wheel, jamming it so it dragged without turning, hence the flat spot. Then, it scrunched the sheet metal and went flying.

I wish I coulda seen this: A wheel falls off, the axle drops to the pavement, the behind wheel freezes and in seconds burns off all the rubber. Meanwhile the front spindle is dragging through the pavement. And the flying wheel hits an orphanage and ignites a fire. OK, I don’t know the orphanage thing actually happened. I haven’t heard from law enforcement.

If I decide to quit the road, it will be something like experiences like this that convince me….