Dump Truck Flat Tire

A ray of good news - someone saw me with a big ole load of mulch for $45. Doesn't matter that I was stuck in the Mulch Hole picking it up! Someone other than me needs me to do some work with the Dump Truck! Yippee! Rich, Rich, beyond my wildest dreams!!!. Buy for $45 and sell for $65. Buy low, sell high! That's capitalism. Its what makes America Great. Of course, I need to keep my costs under control.

My brother let me know that his neighbor needed mulch. So on a day off from work, I was going to start my road to riches. I woke up early, with a tingley feeling in my stomach, anticipating the excitement of my first "sale." Having picked up a load, and avoided the giant Mulch Hole (driving forward all the way into the yard this time), I was whistling my way back to my customer. I thought maybe I'd drive around some neighborhoods, enticing the surburban yardsmen to beckon me to stop, asking, "Where'd you get that great load of expensive mulch?" and "Can you get me a load - I'll pay you lots of money!" Just then, the whistling got louder. Given the vintage of the truck, it had to be loud to hear over the other normal noises. It sounded like a playing card clothes-pinned to my spokes. An allmost metronomic hiss, it kept rhythm with my speed. Could it be a puncture? I thought tube tires went instantaneously! So getting to my customer and dumping my load, I got out for a look. Sure enough, a 3" gash in the front left. Everytime it was on the ground side, a little woosh of precious pressure escaped. Calling my buddies at the Diesel Truck store, they said they could fix it if I could get it there - about five miles. I made it about 300ft.

So I called the the Diesel Truck store again - "Sorry, we don't tow." I could wrench off the wheel and bash it off with a sledge hammer and take the bent up mass to them and have to put it on once they fixed it. Or I could call the guys who picked up the truck the last time it broke and then fixed the brake master cylinder. When I told them the first time the weight was 12,000 lbs (that was in November), they thought that was its gross weight with a load. They were surprised to see this one then but towed it. So I asked them to tow it again . . . and they came! Came in about 15 minutes. Fanstastic outfit. Goldwrench Service.

Here is the puncture. About a 4" gash perpendicular to any tangent of the tire, in other words, in line with a radius. I'm thinking it may have been busted when I drove over a rock or hit a log or something. It happened way before the mulch hole incident, since a mark on the tire in this position appears in pictures taken in December during the Front Wall work (see this picture).

The dump truck at the truck tire store getting its new $350 tire installed. Now the truck is worth $370. Its good to get a new General S360 tire on the front because the front tires had been mismatched when the Goodyear went. Now, the General makes a good match for the Dunlop SP 160 on the right side.

This makes it all worth it - product delivered to the residential customer. After a new tire, installation, tire disposal, towing, and power steering fluid, I made about -$480. Looking forward to more business.

Bend my Ear