Early road work and fixing Model T flats

[John kuehn]

Here’s an interesting newspaper article about early road work in the Model T era close to Waco, Texas. It gives a clue about old car owners and the accepted nuisance of fixing flats. We can only imagine the hassle of going to town and being dressed then having to get out and fix a flat. Evidently road maintenance was still being done by mule power.

[Dan Hatch]

Years ago in Nebraska I bought a barn fresh 23 Touring at one of the largest auctions of unrestored cars and other items.
When I got this car home I had to replace the tires. When I removed one tire, the red inner tube had 17 patches on it. I can only imagine how the poor guy had such a time fixing that tire so many times.
We don’t know how good we have now. Dan

[Art M]

I wonder how many of the folks in the Model T hobby still patch a leaking tube. I do, if the tube if it is in good condition. There is a good chance that some of the 17 patches were due to rim pinches from mounting a tire.

Art Mirtes

[micshotrodgarage]

During the Great depression and the war years People were a creative bunch at making things last, as we often see from the photos of the era. I love seeing our beloved the Model T In daily life. I remember my dad buying a pair of used tires and finding inside; someone had twisted old news papers to us in place of tubes.

[Dan Hatch]

I hung on the tube for awhile, as a souvenir.
Also found a Buffalo nickel under back seat when cleaning it out.
Later sold car and it went back to Kansas City. It was a low mileage car. All the cars in auction were put in barns before WW2.

[Daisy Mae]

I can only imagine having to contend with Auto clinchers, while Mom, in her Sunday best, endured the constancy of heat, cold, dust etc.
Yet some of us do have similar experiences with our bicycles or dirtbikes. Where I grew up in CA the dry hills were full of this nasty plant called Star Thistle...flowers with fine yet sturdy barbs capable of puncturing the tire/tube, or your shoe. We just kept a pump with us being slow leaks, but eventually too many was too much to hold pressure for long. Running ones hand in the tires to find them all generally turned into a bloody & painful ordeal. But guaranteed one or more runs on the dirt roads there required a repair. Our saving grace was when fix a flat came out, we just always filled our tubes with it and hoped it lasted a season.

[Steve Jelf]

For most folks, changing clincher tires for the first time is quite a struggle. The challenge decreases with practice and some study, and eventually having to change a tire becomes no big deal. If I still had my 1915 together and running, I'd make a video.

[Daisy Mae]

We can solve that!! I'll just bring my '14 to you and you can put on new tires for me! I'll hold the camera!

[tmodeldriver]

When my dad was eight years old his family moved from South Georgia to central Florida, a trip of about 350 miles. The car was a new 1924 T Model. What was surprising to everyone and almost unbelievable, they made the whole trip without a flat tire. Almost unheard of in those days.