Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

I wanted to throw this out there for the safety of other board members, and anyone else reading the board.
Recently I was driving my heirloom 68 LWB stepside C10 down a country road as I have done hundreds of times before. All of a sudden the rear end went airborne and came crashing down to the road again. As I was wondering what the devil had just happened, I noticed a very familiar-looking spare tire bouncing down the road in the rear-view mirror behind me. It came to rest in the ditch, so I stopped and threw it into the truck bed.
So here is apparently what occurred: I put this brand-new spare tire under the truck into its factory-correct bracket several years ago. In all that time I hav
e NEVER had a flat with this particular truck. So, as they say, out of sight, out of mind.
Over the years, the air in said tire had gone down a bit as tends to happen with unused tires. So as I was driving down the road, the now-smaller tire apparently worked itself loose from the spare tire bracket, and the front of it touched down on the road. This literally pole-vaulted the rear end of the truck into the air and unleashed the spare tire onto an unsuspecting public roadway.
I shudder to think of what could have occurred had this happened on the interstate highway. The tire would have undoubtedly hit other cars and ping-ponged back and forth between the interstate dividers, striking fast-moving vehicles as it went, since it would have had nowhere else to go. And I would have been driving interstate speed, so this also could have caused the truck to flip over, or loss of control and a terrible accident.
I thank my lucky stars that I was driving only 40ish MPH on a deserted country road when this occurred. So I am saying to everyone reading this:
CHECK THE AIR IN YOUR SPARE TIRE EVERYTIME YOU CHANGE YOUR OIL OR SIMPLY THINK ABOUT DOING IT.
It may save a life, including your own.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

Dang, I was looking at the spare on a truck that I drive quite a bit the other day thinking that I needed to check the air pressure in it. My 71 has the spare tire holder on the inside of the bed and the tire stands up in the left front corner of the bed if I have it in there.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

Good thing you where on a country road. Glad your OK.You may need to check under the truck make sure nothing was damaged. I removed the old tire rack years ago and keep my spare in the bed. Which I have a bed cover over it also.:chevy:

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

IF you decide to repair, and return to using the underbed spare tire carrier -- you might consider 2 independent safety chains going to points under the bed. May have to be fabbed. Each chain thru the rim and around the rubber. Close to 180* apart. Sufficient to hold the tire by themselves. It would make changing a tire in the rain and dark an even worse situation than it already is, but there would be peace of mind that your spare is bombproof.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

I had that happen to me on a 1981 C10. Same exact thing.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

The spare tire is often neglected, unfortunately. Not only are they allowed to lose their air, people run with spare tires that are 20 years old and dry rotted to the point they would be unsafe for any distance.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

I check mine every oil change, not for that reason, but because it sucks having a flat only to discover the spare is flat too.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

As I as reading through the posts in this thread I was thinking this exact thought. If I don't remember to check it at every oil change every other oil change my tires get rotated and they all get checked then.

Thanks for the warning though. That would have been crazy on a multi lane 75-80 mph highway!

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

Mines easy to check the air in, made this sun cover awhile back and left the center open for easy valve stem access.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

.
Dang! That could have been so much worse. Pretty sure you would have crashed at higher speed.

Glad you are OK!

I've always been wary of flat spare tires...never considered one might fall to the road as a result though.


-klb

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

Thank you for the lesson. I will take notice.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

i had a lowered truck loose the spare while turning onto an ON-Ramp...it lifted and allowed the truck to slide to the left, slamming the rear wheels into a large curb when coming down.

ripped the roll pan off, broke the wheel and bent the axle shaft.

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

A thing to not take for granted for sure. What good is a flat spare tire anyway?

Re: Dangerous Lesson Learned...
 

Back when I ran bias ply tires [guess we all did then] I kept an innertube in the spare, so it wouldn't serarate from the rim when offroading.