If Tires Could Talk . . . . (Post # 56)

One of the Michelin X tires on The Alfatross when I bought it in 1969 was made in Italy.  It is not "original," but it is more than 45 years old!  

At at local neighborhood get-together a few weeks ago I told a neighbor I am still working on The Alfatross. He asked how it was going. I told him some guys in Arizona are doing the engine, some guys in Tennessee are doing the chassis and body, and a guy in Massachusetts is doing the interior.  He looked puzzled and said "Well hell, what are you doing then? I had to shake my head.  If you've never disassembled a car down to its nuts and bolts you don't realize how many parts and sub-systems there are, even in a simple 1950s era vehicle.  The big-ticket tasks with a restoration like this one may be the engine, body, and interior, but I'm starting to think that the "little jobs" that I'm doing now take just as much labor.  

I drew up a list of 25 categories of "sub-assemblies" ranging from getting the horns working to disassembling the transmission.  Typically, these jobs entail several stages like disassembly, testing, cleaning, making new parts, reassembly, and refinishing.  More about that in a later post.  But by way of example I want to devote this post to one of those sub-categories: 

Tires and Tubes

The Alfatross is not going anywhere until the wheels go on.  The wheels are finished, but not yet shod in tubes and tires.  Last week I got the tubes and tires out of storage to clean them up and look them over.  I have 5 tubes, but only four tires.   I remember that I bought tubes and tires for the car about 10 years after I bought it.  The spare was in such bad condition that I pitched it.  Going through my records I even found the receipt for 2 tubes and 3 tires in 1979 costing $184.93!  This was in preparation for towing The Alfatross on its own wheels 1,000+ miles from North Carolina to Texas behind my VW bus.    

The receipt for 3 tires and 2 tubes from the middle of August, 1979

I never bothered to look carefully at the tubes and tires before, and I guess always assumed that I would just put them back on the wheels.  What I discovered after cleaning and close inspection led me to change my mind about putting 35 year-old tires and 45+ year-old tubes back on those freshly refinished Borranis!    













The 2 "new" tubes were a mis-matched Michelin 165-380 15EF13 and a Michelin 165-400 17E, both made in Italy.  The "original" tubes were a Michelin 165-400 4E made in Italy, and 2 (also mis-matched) Pirelli 155-15 29A15s made in Spain! Two of the "original" tubes were patched, making me wonder what condition the ones I replaced were in!

Although the tread on the Michelin X tires was in pretty good condition, the sidewalls and tread bands were hard and stiff, and there were tears in the rim bead.  Three of them were stamped "MADE IN FRANCE" and the fourth was stamped "MADE IN ITALY."  




In any case I needed a fifth tire so I ordered one  from Lucas Classic tires.  I was concerned about matching the other tires so I asked the salesman if that was going to be a problem.  He said "same molds."  




I guess it was asking too much to expect that the new tire would match the ones that were 45+ years old.  When it arrived the molded identification information was dramatically different--and it was stamped "MADE IN SERBIA"! The good news is that it is a better-made tire with an 87S speed rating.

A conversation with my colleagues at the Car Table meeting this week convinced me that I will have to purchase 3 more new tires and 5 new tubes to make The Alfatross road-worthy.  But the oldest, Italian-made tire could conceivably be kept as the spare for nostalgia's sake.  

Yeah, I know, it's just a tire.  But I'm sure that if it could talk, it would have some pretty good stories about where it came from, what roads it traveled, and what adventures it had before in rolled into my driveway!