More Handy Auto Repair Tips

We all carry a spare tire for one very good reason. We might need it. So what happens if when you have that flat and then find your spare is flat as well? Now your situation is twice as bad as before.

A wise motorist should plan for the various road hazards and insuring that one has the means to change a flat tire is a priority. But even the most cautious of us can be surprised and it would serve us well to have an alternate means of taking care of the problem should it arrive.

I carry two essential tools to insure that a flat tire does not leave me stranded. The first is a twelve volt air pump. I can use this pump to re-inflate a tire that has gone flat from a slow leak thus allowing me to drive farther or until I can either reach a service station or I am forced to repair the puncture myself. Or I can inflate a spare tire before placing it onto the car. And in a worse case scenario with neither tire capable of holding air, I also carry a tire plugging kit.

This is a simple set of tools for plugging a tire as well as a service station could do it and nearly as fast. Here is how to use it. The tools consist of two screwdriver type devices. One is a rasp with roughened sides on the shaft of the tool and a pointed end. You grasp the handle and then force the end of the tool into the hole in the tire. Then a few up and down motions with the tool insures the hole is cleared of any debris and also roughs up the inner edges of the hole to insure a better sealing surface for the plug once it is inserted.

The second screwdriver type tool is made with a hook on it's end. You take the piece of pre-glued plug material that comes with the kit and wedge it into the hook. The with a sharp motion, drive the hook end into the tire making sure you leave about one quarter of an inch of plug material still exposed, Give your tool a quarter turn to the side and with another sharp motion, yank it out of the hole. The tool is so designed that it will withdraw leaving the plug material still in the hole. If you believe the hole is too large to be plugged using only one piece of plug material, use another along side the first. Now use your twelve volt pump to inflate the tire.

Most car trouble comes from simple wear and tear. We can make our cars last longer and perform better by keeping up with the maintenance. One of these maintenance chores is chassis lubrication. A grease job is the more common name for this. On most vehicles there will be grease plugs installed on critical moving parts such as the ball joints and tie rod ends. A grease gun is inexpensive and will last for years. Before crawling under your car please insure the car has been blocked from moving by using a wheel scotch. Apply the grease gun fitting to the grease plug and give each plug a good couple of squirts. This all the grease you need. Too much is wasteful and does no good anyway.

One of the places most people miss applying grease is the drive shaft universal joints. Have a look at yours and determine if they have grease plugs. If they do, you will probably need a special adapter to fit onto the end of your grease gun to get the grease into them, but it is money well spent and may well save you the sight of seeing your drive shaft following you down the highway some day.

Spark plugs are crucial to the operation of your engine and changing them out at regular intervals used to be key to a proper running engine. These days while the plugs are just as crucial the change out interval has been enormously expanded. At one time spark plugs needed to be changed out at about ten thousand miles. With our modern engines of today we can expect the plugs to last one hundred thousand miles before they require replacing. The change out procedure is usually quite straight forward. You may have to work around engine components but the job is basically to attach a spark plug socket onto the plug and unscrew the thing and lift it out.

Before replacing a plug you will need to examine and possibly adjust the spark plug gap. This is a priority you do not want to ignore. An improperly gapped plug can lead to poor performance, poor fuel mileage, over heating, fouled plugs and having to do the whole spark plug job over again.