Boogity, Boogity, Boogity! Let’s Change a Tire Girls!!!



I was watching one of the 10 days of thunder Sprint Cup races with the Redneck over the weekend and my college girl heard Daryl Waltrip signal the launch of the race … “Boogity, Boogity, Boogity! Let’s Go Racing Boys!!” and I tried to explain to her the legacy of those lines.  But not coming from the moonshine rat race culture myself I’m quite certain it was all lost in transmission.  Fact is, I don’t know much about cars, despite growing up with a father who worships the Big Block but I do know how to change a flat tire.  Dad made sure of that.  And as soon as my first girl was able to drive I made certain she knew how to change a tire too.  Life has changed since then, I don’t get out much at all and I certainly don’t change many tires.  So it may have surprised (worried) my youngest daughter when I announced that I was going to teach her how to change a flat tire.  After a brief discussion of whether we should wake up the redneck and let him know our plan we headed out to the garage.

Step One … Locate the spare tire.  I showed her how to lift the hatch and unscrew the spare donut.  We took the pieces of the jack out of their clasps and laid everything out on the floor.

Step Two FTLugNuts2… Loosen lug nuts.  Before you jack up the tire, you need to make sure each of the lug nuts are finger loose.  Our lug wrench was fairly short and we didn’t have enough tork to untwist the nut by hand.  (Okay, I learned a few things from my Dad.)  So we opted to STEP on the wrench with out foot and jump on it a bit.  Redneck Safety Note:  NEVER step on the wrench it could slip out from under you and impale your leg!  If you need the extra power you can grasp the wrench firmly with your hand right on the nut and then step on the BACK side of the wrench.  That way if it does slip from your foot you always have a clean grasp of the wrench with your hand and it won’t go out flying.  We actually try and keep a piece of pipe in the car to extend the handle of the wrench.

FTJack3 FTJack4Step Three … Raise the body of the car.  You need to find the FRAME of the car and not place the jack plate under the flimsy part of the door or other decorative body bits.  Our jack had a groove that was designed to fit inside the metal frame in front of the wheel.

Redneck Safety Note: Make sure you CHAULK the tire before you try and jack up the car.  The conversation went something like this

“Did you remember to loosen the lug nuts babe?”

“Yes of course I did, because I know how to change a tire.”

“K.  Did you chalk the tire?”

“What?”

“Did you CHALK the tire?”

“Why would I chalk the tire?  What does that do?”

“When you jack up that tire it could make the whole car SLIP.  And you don’t want that car rolling back on ya, so you gotta chalk the tire first.”

FTChaulkNOSMAs I was getting up to get the chalk that I keep in my sewing kit, I turned around and asked “How does making a line on the tire with a piece of chalk stop the car from rolling back on me?”

Long story short (too late, I know) to “chock” a tire has nothing to do with drawing a chalk line on the rubber.  It means you put a BRICK or some other BLOCK behind the opposite tire wheel than the one you are working on.  So in our case .. we were lifting the rear LEFT tire, so we put a chock (two FTChalked6concrete pavers behind the FRONT RIGHT tire.  So that if the car did move as we raised her up, it would not roll back up on us.

We placed the jack handle hook in the jack handle and rotated the jack slowly until the tire was off of the ground.

 

Step Four … Remove the lug nuts and slip off the flat tire.  Occasionally we needed to remind our self Righty tighty lefty loosy!  and we would turn the bolts to the left and set them aside on the ground.

Step Five … Put on the donut and tighten her up.

FTDonut9

Redneck Tip: Put on the bottom lugs first, that will hold the tire in place and it’ll be easier to put the rest on.

 

 

FTJack11Step Six … Lower the jack.  Bring the car down slowly and bring the tire in to get fixed.

Sure, 99 times out of 100 you’ll have access to your cell phone and road side service company to come and change your flat tire.  Or you’ll have a handy redneck nearby who will take a minute from watching NASCAR and come and give you a hand.  But as women, I think its really important we know how to do this for our selves.  Because one day we may find our self up against something unexpected or otherwise out of our bailiwick and we will remember hey .. I can do this!  Because I know how to change a tire.

 

 

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