Clutch bolts and locktite

Yes, a very bad omission. I have seen similarly disastrous omissions and errors in those aftermarket manuals. Flywheel and clutch bolt torque settings switched for instance. That was an obvious error to a trained mechanic but wouldn't have been for an amateur.

I've got a Japanese car and two Japanese bikes and they are metric, end of story. My 'made in America' F150 and Harley throw a little metric in the mix to make sure you have two sets of tools.

The one advantage of metric is communicating to the spousal unit when you're under the car and need another wrench. Women grasp whole numbers a lot better than 'get me the goddam 11/32!"

I still have a significant quantity of Whitworth and BS stuff. Obviously not used in a very very long time. The US is, in the automotive industry at least, metricating so you will see significantly more metric in your 'made in America' vehicles in the future.

I keep my spousal unit away when I work on cars so your issue doesn't affect me. That said, since we metricated here decades ago, many of the younger tradespeople - male and female - have no idea of imperial fractions either.

This is exactly how tires blow out when they are underinflated. You say that she checked the pressure last week, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a nail or sidewall puncture causing the tire to lose pressure slowly.

Tires are wear items. You replace them now and then, you check them often, and sometimes they just fail. The government is not likely to be able to do much about that.

--scott

Definitely! That tyre shows distinct sidewall degradation that didn't happen overnight or in a week.

Or that it had been run underinflated for months prior to being correctly inflated the week prior thereby prematurely weakening the sidewalls and setting it up for failure.

When I rebuilt my 352 and put it together there was a random knock. Never even moved the truck. I couldn't figure it out. Finally decided to let it idle until it screamed, obviously wiping bearings. It didn't take long, maybe 2-3 minutes of very erratic knocking. Dropped the pan, found wipings in the new oil. Still had the rented engine hoist, so I pulled the engine again, and tore it down. Found the cam lobes had been chipped. I spent about 15 minutes searching the garbage can for the old fiber cam gear I had replaced with a new cast iron one. Saw that the cast iron one had the 1/4" spacer I had reinstalled cast in with the gear. Took the block back to the shop which had bathed it, and installed new cam bearings. This shop had also miked the crank and bores and sold me the correct size bearings, cam, rings, and lifters. The parts guy there felt bad that he hadn't warned me about the new cam gear, and didn't charge me for a new cam. About 20 bucks. I was surprised at that - figured I should have caught that myself. Hell, if it had been a day later, and the garbage had been picked up, I would have had a hell of a time figuring out what was wrong. That little fiasco cost me about a days work. What I can't remember about the whole thing, is how in the hell I put that block in and out of my '64 Bug 4 times for shop trips. I worked alone the whole time. Ah, youth!

That's interesting because I work on this care (but not on that tire) and I have always advised her (it's a college kid who lives away at college) to keep it at 40 psi so ever since she bought it (a year ago) it was at 40psi.

Here's the only other photo she sent me, this on in situ, on the roadside:

I know this car well as this kid is a neighbor's kid who has gone away to school, and I repaired three of her five tires (the pictures are in this newsgroup, where the last one was only about a month ago).

I can't speak for the history before a year ago, as that's when she bought it (I helped her buy it too, where it's the third or fourth owner).

In the past year, I've patchplugged three of her five tires, the last one only about a month or so ago (let me dig up the thread so I can give you the exact date). For now, assume a month.

At that time, all five tires were at 40 psi because I'm meticulous that way, and because this is a college kid who doesn't think about such things. I know for a fact exactly which tires they are because I rotated them at that time and worried about the fact that the front two and the spare were the ones which each had one patch plug from me.

The rear two didn't have anything and didn't need anything, and the tread was fantastic and they were holding air pressure or I would have noticed that they weren't (since I look at her tires every once in a while - and no

- I didn't mount these except the ones I repaired).

So for them to be *underinflated* had to happen more than a year ago.

I picked out every bit of debris in each of her tires when I rotated them (I always do where I have a pick in my tire repair kit) but I didn't closely inspect the sidewall other than that it didn't show anything obvious to me.

Wow. I wasn't expecting someone to say "underinflated" especially since she told me she inflates them to 40psi even though the door sticker I had her read says 29 psi. So, if anything, she would have been overinflated.

I had her check for nail holes and she said she didn't see any. I told her to save the carcass for me (she was on a trip and won't be back for a few days) so I could physically look at it when she returns.

She's pretty meticulous, so, I'm sure the tires weren't underinflated at the time she was using them, but could they have been run chronically underinflated by the previous owner (more than a year ago) and still blown out yesterday (a year later)?

I have had many flats, but I've never seen a tire do that.

The AAA guy said to her (according to her) that there must have been something wrong with the tire. He checked her spare before putting it on and he said it was good (where the spare would have been checked with the other tires last week and where I had repaired her spare with a patchplug about six months ago).

I'm positive that the tire wasn't underinflated last week, and, in fact, it was, if anything, at 40psi, unless, of course, there was a leak (which I don't know about).

I have no idea if it was run chronically underinflated at some point in its life though, so all I can say is that it likely wasn't underinflated in the last week - unless - unless there is a nail hole (which I will look for).

I think it's odd that I've never seen a tire do that, nor, according to her, did the AAA towtruck think it normal, and that you think it's normal.

I'm not saying you're wrong as I don't have the experience - where all I can say is I have had, oh, I don't know, 40 or 50 flats, and none looked anything like that (which is not much experience as a tire shop will see much more).

I'll take the photo to a tire shop to ask them also, so I do very much appreciate the advice since I realize 40 or 50 flats (I'm guessing at the number) for me isn't all that much experience. (I should note that I have repaired this neighbor's tires in the past, but this is DEFINITELY not one of the ones I touched - the last one I did was right on the edge of her sidewall - which I posted pictures of a month or two ago - and I repaired the spare also - both with patch plugs.

At that time (we can look up the date of that thread), three of her five tires were patched by me from the inside - but she confirmed this is not one of them (I write on the tire with grease pen when I repair them and she hated those markings because they were on the outside sidewall so it's confirmed I never touched this particular tire except to fill it with air).

Overinflation is just as bad, but I don't know how overinflated tires fail because I have not really seen any of those. Underinflation is much more common.

Overinflation also puts undue stress on the sidewall, but not in the same way.

He's likely right. See any dry-rot cracks on the other tires? See any sidewall damage anywhere?

So she's a person who is prone to running over nails frequently?

--scott

Here is a series of pictures of an inside patch-and-plug repair on that same car (different tire but same model and date code I'm sure) in May of this year, which I had posted to this newsgroup to ask if it was too close to the sidewall.

(Yes, I'm detail oriented.)

A few reasons I know these tires were not underinflated in the past year is that I check them periodically when the college kid is in town, and I inflate to 40psi habitually for all my passenger tires.

This tire above is the same car, and almost certainly the same brand (as only the spare was a different model) but the tire that popped did NOT have any repairs by me so I never touched it other than to inflate it to 40psi.

The carcass says it can handle a given load (I don't remember the pounds but she read it to me and it was something like 1400 and change per tire) at 44psi, where she was at 40psi on a hot day at 80mph (yes, I know that means the pressure went up about 10% or so).

There is almost zero chance this tire was underinflated for the last year, but there's no way to know what it was prior to that as the tire is 3 years old and she bought the car 1 year ago.

I typically recommend everyone I know use 40psi despite the door sticker, but this door sticker, for the record, is 29psi.

I don't know why most of you don't get as many flats as we do, but I repair a nail-or-screw-based flat every few months it seems, although caveats apply where it's not on a general schedule, of course, and I do it for neighbors and I have 4 cars in use all the time, where it's part of my equation as to why I mount and statically balance my own tires at home.

Here's a picture of one of the tires I repaired in 2016 for example that I had posted to this newsgroup when I was looking for a good patch plug supplier.

Here are five more holed tires that I posted to this newsgroup back in

2017, where I "practiced" on these five, all of which were well beyond the tread life. Remember, it doesn't rain for 9 or 10 months of the year here so traction is "better" the slicker the tread, but let's ignore the extreme tread wear and concentrate on the fact that tires hole all the time when you look at the size of this screw, which would have punctured a truck tire since it's so long. This is another picture I posted, of that same tire, showing where it was punctured by that long screw which is common in the flats that I see around here. Anyway, you guys seem to have a LOT more luck with nails and screws than I do, which is why I repair tires all the time, as I don't think I've ever had a vehicle ever wear a set of tires to the wear bars before getting at least half the tires punctured.

Your tires also last FOREVER compared to ours, which only last two years, and maybe three at most, but this is very hilly very windy country where K turns are normal every day, twice a day to get out of the garage, none of which is kind to tires.

The main question here is what on earth causes a tire to catastrophically fail like that? The real question for me is should I order 4 new tires, given this thread is still fantastic (she lives elsewhere where it isn't hilly and windy so she gets more than we do by way of wear).

Picked up one of these for the next time around!

Lisle 55600 Clutch Pilot Bushing Remover "This Blind Hole Bushing Remover Uses Hydraulic Pressure to Quickly Remove Brass and Bronze Pilot Bushings from 1/2" to 4/4" ID. Not for Use on Steel Bearings."

I wonder why it wouldn't work for steel?