Changing out a flat tire the easy way

[dkasten39828]

Many of you may have experienced the true joys of changing a tire on your coach yourself. I know I have.

The 1st time I used a big scissor jack, kinda like the ones anchored to the corners of the coach frame for stabilizers. It worked but it was a pain in the you-know-what. This method worked more easily on the old single axle popup. But now we have a big tandem axle coach. Different story altogether.

What I have now is a great time & sweat saver. Some of you may have this already, but if not... it's great!

We have a set of three 2x6 boards, drilled at each end to allow bolts to hold the entire thing stacked together. They are long enough to extend out beyond the tires of both axles. We've used them for leveling. With them we can adjust for up to 4-1/2 inches of side-to-side offset in a campsite. But they have another use.

You can use them as a jack. Placing the entire stack behind the tires on one side, you can back the coach up onto the boards and STOP with only the rearward tire on the top board... the front tire will then be up off the ground and allow you to swap out the tire. It works the same way for changing out a rear tire... just move the stack so it's in front of the tires, pull the coach up onto the boards and STOP with only the front tire up on the boards. WONDERFUL. Much quicker and easier than the other way.

I swapped out all of our tires in my side yard this last weekend. It took me less time to do TWO of them this way than it took me to change out that one flat tire with a jack. The shop that swapped out my old tires and mounted/balanced the new ones did not have enough space for me to put my coach in their parking lot for the swap, so I decided to do it myself in the yard. It worked out GREAT.

Any of my friends who have tandem axle campers and do NOT have this type of setup is gonna get one from us next Christmas! A true multi purpose gift!

[kanyonkitty]

I've done the same thing, except I used my Lego Blocks. So, I have 3 or 4 sets of Legos, and I also have the wooden ramp because it came out of my bus

Even though the ramp made changing the tire easier, it still wasn't fun on the narrow shoulder of I-40 about 40 minutes west of Ok. City, OK.

A zillion people passed by me, but NONE stopped to see if I was OK, or offer assistance, AH, I keep forgetting "That's the American Way"

Now, "IF" I could just get KD to help me a bit it would be an easier job, BUT this is her normal idea of helping:

[2beagles]

That is one comfy doggie!!

[SanDimasJoe]

Kitty,
You're going to have to stop working KD so hard. She has to learn how relax a little.

Joe