New Shoes!

All bus content today. Hapy gets new shoes!

Background

on the way home from
Black Sheep Family Reunion

If you've been reading this blog for a while, there are a couple of things that have probably popped out. First, I've been wanting to get bigger tires since I did the engine/tranny swap. Second, our cars appear to break down in bunches so we rely on the bus as a "life raft" when one of the regular use cars fails. Until last Summer, this had been a fine pattern: when emergency struck, I'd abandon whatever project I was working on and drove the bus while fixing whatever was wrong with whichever car was broken. Last Summer on our trip to Wheeler (see Santa Clara by way of Wheeler), we lost a tire. This forced a tire replacement decision. I chose not to decide, and to instead take my chances and drive the bus as little as possible.

Rubber Ages

Wheeler

The current set on the bus is over 10 years old, and they spent most of their life sitting still. The tread is awesome, but the rubber is starting to break down. This is normal. To the consumer, hearing a tire salesperson explain that "while the tread looks good, your tires are dangerous" rings hollow. Most folks have the same immediate reaction: you're just trying to sell me tires I don't need. I know I think it. In truth, the oxidation of the rubber does cause it to become less capable of holding air. Eventually they develop slow leaks. In some cases the sidewall can become unstable and rather than frustratingly running flat, it could blow out. Yikes.

Research Leads to Solutions

mid- paint job, winter 2014

Since I'd been wrestling with this problem for a while, I had lots of research to depend upon when I had to make decisions (see: Wheels, Studs, Chrome and Backspace). Decision time was now. With 2dot0 gone (see Oh SNAP), Boo and I had to re-possess her old Saturn named Dude from the person we had long-term-loaned the car to. I haven't blogged much about Dude, but that car has been the cause of a fair share of life-boat emergencies. With our stable reduced by one, I needed Hapy back road ready right away. So, I hit craigslist, hoping to find some old 15" Vanagon rims. Instead, I found a set of 16" x 7" wheels with some 50/50 rubber on them.

I ran the current size rim/tire combination (215/60R16) through my spreadsheet. According to my calculations, I had less than 8mm between the edge of the rear tire and the rear fender, but otherwise it easily fit: 14mm away from suspension, over 40mm between the edge of the tire and the front/rear fender edge of the front wheel. Comfortable that these would fit, I bought them.

Acquisitions

new shoes, p-side

It turned out that the seller (name withheld to protect the innocent) knows my old friend Justin. The seller has a stable of Vanagons, including a mid-80' Subaru-powered Westy, a TDI-powered single-cab and a regular '87 7 passenger. I totally drooled over the Westy and the single-cab. The Westy is his wife's daily-driver (very impressive). I could have talked VW's and crawled over his Vanagons all evening, but the weather was for rot and he and his wife had dinner on the stove, so we traded cash for wheels and I hit the trailing edge of rush-hour traffic home.

Install
Changing a tire isn't exactly hard. Block opposite side wheels. Crack lugs. Raise vehicle until rubber no longer touches the ground. If possible, put a jack stand under frame for extra safety. Remove lugs. Remove wheel. Install is reverse, with final torque performed when the tire is back on the ground, "jumping the center" as you go. Doing this 4 times can take some time and energy. I think it took me 2-1/2 hours to do all four. Along the way, I convinced myself that the rear end has too much float to it. I had to raise the rear end too high into the air, I almost ran out of threads on the BusDepot jack, and the tire still wasn't off the ground. I resorted to putting a small rolly jack under the lower shock mount to get the wheel up. I have to address this rear suspension.

new front rim

The wheels fit over the rear castle nuts and front grease caps. In fact, there is a hair of room to put little covers over them to clean up the look. The rims, though, only had one cover included, so I'll have to find some. The original lugs fit, though it was tight. I was able to get them on with the tips of my fingers, and had to use a 3/8" driver with a socket to set them. The old spare that was put on in Wheeler went back onto the nose, for now. I'll need to replace that soon too.

I haven't had a chance to take a test drive yet. I am mid-way through a few projects, but I may clear the bus of half completed work so I can take a spin tonight. The wheels look great, IMHO. K, my oldest, says it has a throw-back beach bum look. I'll take it. I'll be replacing these tires when the need arises, and then I expect to put on 215/70R16 for a slightly lower revs-per-mile than the current set.

Thanks, as always, for following along.