Model A Inner Tube World Record?

Deuce Man

Deuce Man

Well-known member
I'm sure it's not, but I'll bet it's close! Back in June I trailered an old 29 roadster from North Dakota. It had four flats. While dragging it around with my tractor one of the tires worked its way off the rim. This was the inner tube that came out of it. I counted 23 patches on this tube! Imagine if it could only talk! Today you can hardly buy a tube at a tire store much less get one patched. Those were the days!

Anybody have one with more patches than this?
 

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Wow, wouldn't have been cheaper to buy a new tube than to fix it that many times??? They guy must have been super fast at de-mounting and mounting a tire!
 
Deuce Man said:
I'm sure it's not, but I'll bet it's close! Back in June I trailered an old 29 roadster from North Dakota. It had four flats. While dragging it around with my tractor one of the tires worked its way off the rim. This was the inner tube that came out of it. I counted 23 patches on this tube! Imagine if it could only talk! Today you can hardly buy a tube at a tire store much less get one patched. Those were the days!

Anybody have one with more patches than this?
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yeah, like you say...if it could only talk! thanks for sharing, brings back a lot of bad memories. hm, i don't think that an overall majority of people know and/or care what it was like having nothing back when...and making that do ! sadly, its a throw away world nowadays ...for most people.
 
hardtimes said:
yeah, like you say...if it could only talk! thanks for sharing, brings back a lot of bad memories. hm, i don't think that an overall majority of people know and/or care what it was like having nothing back when...and making that do ! sadly, its a throw away world nowadays ...for most people.
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Very true.
 
Ja - maybe they where superfast in mounting.
Looks as if they where tooo fast sometimes.
Lots of punctures in one area might be due to dirt in the tube...
 
Some guy told me that years ago he removed the inner tube and packed the tire full of straw. I don't see how you could pack the straw in tight enough to do any good and still reinstall the tire to the rim.
 
repairing a tube back in the day was probably alot cheaper than buying one...and I remember service stations with full service....just begging you to work or change the oil in your car!!
 
How about bottle oil, or bringing your own can to sears and buying bulk oil? They had a dispenser, kind of like a faucet in the auto department. I had a friend with a smokey old 53 chevy in high school that ran his car on drain oil from the local garage. It went thru his motor so fast that new oil would be a waste of money. Rich.
 
Hi all:

This car might have been owned/driven by a teenager. We all remember those days....a lot more time than money. Hence you buy a patching kit and do it yourself and often and necessary.

As a teen in the late 60's I had a really bad '52 chev (cost me $50.00) with really bad tires; carcuses barely covering the tubes. I knew they were prone to go flat, so I had three spares in the trunk;....just in case. :-)

One cold winter night on a date with my wife (then just a girl friend) I had to use all three spares........quite a date. I felt like a pit man at a stock car race.

PS: She married me anyway. :-)
 
I knew a guy that used to scrounge thru the dump ,lookin thru the tires tryin to find one that would hold air. Years ago ,most roads were gravel ,sharp rock could puncture thru to the tube,fixin a flat along the side of the road was common.Most Model A's had more than one spare.
 
When I was a teenager and had a 31 fordor, it had 3 spares, one on each fender and one in the rear. Why? just 'cause! Don't ever remember having to use one in the 2 years I had the car. On my AA 280A, that was a whole nuther deal!
 
Today it's a throw away society. Back then they fixed everything they could and kept it serviceable for as long as possible. Grant it, 23 patches is a lot.

Can you imagine 23 plugs in todays radial tire!
 
A while back I gave a Dodge Brothers rim with an old worn out tire to a friend. It was quite heavy. I suspected concrete or something equally horrible inside. He reported back to me that there were 5 tires on that 1 rim! No tube at all, just 4 extra carcasses with the beads cut off! Tire was round, I'll give it that! Back in the old days ya did what ya had to to get by. Glad it was him and not me that dismounted that mess!
 
I took a wheel/tire apart that had a red rubber tube in it and it still holds air thou I dont run it on the road, it has one patch in it about 2" in dia.
 
2935ford said:
Today it's a throw away society. Back then they fixed everything they could and kept it serviceable for as long as possible. Grant it, 23 patches is a lot.

Can you imagine 23 plugs in todays radial tire!
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After Hurricane Andrew blew through here there were more roofing nails on the road than there was road itself.I went through 2 boxes of Nappa rope plugs before getting a set of new tires. (modern car) At the tire store we counted 11 plugs in one tire ...my personal high.lol
 
Having lived in third world countries I have seen tubes fixed by pinching the tube at the pucture and tying a string around the bad area. Seemed to work. Grandpa used to say, "Use it up, wear it out, use what you got or do without".
 
Stretch Cab said:
Having lived in third world countries I have seen tubes fixed by pinching the tube at the pucture and tying a string around the bad area. Seemed to work. Grandpa used to say, "Use it up, wear it out, use what you got or do without".
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If that's the case I think I grew up in a third world country called Northern Minnesota.
 
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