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Tyres with Inner Tubes | Inner Tubes Mobile Tyre Fitting West Sussex

Its not often that I get a job where there are tyres with inner tubes but in the last week I had four of them!

The first of which was an MGTC from 1942, it had 19" wire wheels with very narrow tyres. The customer had bought the car from a family member 7 years ago, as far as he was aware the tyres had not been changed in the 15 years that the car had been in his family. So he decided it would be good to have the tyres replaced.

He contacted his local garage but they were unwilling to work on these wheels. He searched online and found Hometyre, he called us and we advised him that we have worked on similar vehicles before so it would be no problem. We recommended that he also have new inner tubes as there was a good chance the tubes were of similar age to the tyres. It was a good job that he agreed to this, as the tyres when checked were 26 years old!

With any tyre of this age the rubber has deteriorated and hardened, the same can be said of the inner tubes. When I arrived I jacked the car up and removed each wheel in turn, the wheels are held on by a central spinning lugnut. This has to be removed by hitting it with a soft faced copper hammer. Once removed there is no noticeable difference in changing the tyre, other than inserting the inner tube. Once inflated, I then balanced the wheels adding sticky weights to the inner edge of the wheel only to keep the outer area looking clean.

The wheels are put back on and the central nut tightened using the hammer. 

MGTC

The second vehicle of the week was a 1960 Dutch caravan that is hired out for weddings and events, the caravan was at a repair shop having some work done to it. The company involved was too busy to replace the tyres, so the owner asked us to change them as they worked on other repairs to the vintage caravan.

When I arrived I noticed that the jockey wheel was on an angle and didn't seem to work properly, so I put a jack under the tow hitch to support it. A second jack was then used to lift the caravan. Once up it the air the wheels were removed and taken into my van, it was at this point that I found out it had inner tubes.

There were no new inner tubes available, so I had to be careful removing the old ones as they needed to be reused. The tyres were 23 years old, which was a worry with the old inner tubes, the owner of the caravan was informed the inner tubes would need changing as soon as the availability was there. I soon had the new tyres fitted with the old inner tubes, they were then balanced and put back on the caravan with the wheel nuts torqued to the correct setting.

Vintage_caravan

The third vehicle was an Alvis from 1947, the owner has had the car for just over a year. He hasn't had it on the road yet as he has been restoring it. When he bought the car it came with a second set of new tyres, as part of the restoration the wheel rims had been painted and he wanted the new tyres fitting along with some new inner tubes he had purchased..

When I arrived the car was already jacked up and the wheels removed. The old tyres were 20 years old, the 'new' tyres were 15 years old, although they were old they had been stored correctly in the dark and seem to be OK. I soon had the old tyres removed and the new tyres with inner tubes installed, the new inner tubes had smaller valves that the originals, so a small plastic grommet is used to adjust the wheels hole size.

Balancing was carried out and the sticky weights were hidden on the inside of the rim. The customer will put the wheels back on the car himself once restoration is complete.

Alvis_wheel

The final job was an old Landrover defender, the customer called to say he had a puncture and could we come to repair it. When I took the wheel off and got to work on it, I found it had an inner tube. I took off the tyre to find a 4" nail had penetrated it and had put a long split in the inner tube.

This was not repairable so a new inner tube will be required. Since this wasn't available on the day, the customer asked that we put the spare wheel on. An inner tube will be sourced and fitted at a later date.

Defender_landrover

 


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