Let the rubber meet the road
Can you feel my pain? No? You are among the fortunate. I’ve got aches where I didn’t know aches were an option. This was tire-changing day. Outside. In and on the gravel. With a simple screw-jack provided by the car manufacturer (no luxury there). On the good side, we only swap the tires twice a year; I now have a whole summer and fall to recuperate.
This was one of those jobs that takes much longer than expected. I can’t be certain (no watch to watch), but I went outside after breakfast and came in after lunch (missed that one). You do the calculus. The tires on the car are where the rubber meets the road. Low, at an angle that means I can’t even see if the studs and the holes are matched. Thankfully the rain held off.
The jack (no nickname available) is a simple contraption. You crank, over and over and over. If things go well (translated as “in the right sense according to the hands of a watch”) the car will slowly rise. Remember, no watch available as reference. Enough to pull the tire free, if you have loosened all the studs at the appropriate moment. And once the tire is off, you get to put another on in its place, assuring that there are no “rotate this way” markings on the sidewall. Missed that part, six months ago. Rode on snows that didn’t have the adherence intended (no, we didn’t fall off the road, but that’s just good luck). For the summer I had to do a pattern rotation, where the front left goes to rear right and so on until there are no more tires left in the stack.
Long story short, we’ve got things ready for summer. But the aches…
