After spending the afternoon hanging new security doors, I began to tear down the old Craftsman push mower. When I heard someone raking or sweeping out front, I figured it had to be my neighbor, Loren, and I walked over to thank him again for remaining vigilant when those dirtbags kicked in our back door the week before last (leading to our recent securitizing the house). While we were talking, he asked how [464] was running and I glanced back at it as I was telling him, “Like a top.”

I bet I picked up another screw.

From time to time, you might hear a faint ticking sound as you go around a slow corner with your windows down. Most of the time, it’s a small rock stuck in the tread, but if the sound doesn’t go away after a while, you might want to keep an eye on your rubber. I’ve picked up nails, screws, even rough pieces of scrap metal with my tires and it always leads to a flat. Today, it would appear that I’d picked up a screw; a phillips head screw to be exact, and the tire was almost on the rim.

Yep. I definitely picked up a screw. Here it is.

If you’ve got $20 and a couple hours to kill, you might head over to the local tire shop or Wal-Mart. Both can get the tire repaired for you, but you can expect to sit and wait for a while. Granted, a quality shop will remove the tire from the rim and patch the hole from the inside, but if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, want to save a few bucks, and maybe spend that hour (or less) doing something other than reading a two month old copy of Women’s Day, this is how you go about plugging that tire yourself.

Break the lug nuts loose (but DON’T remove them) before you raise the vehicle.

Unless you’re careless and lost it (or bought a car on Craigslist that didn’t come with it), you should have the right lug nut wrench in the trunk near the spare. (On trucks, this is usually behind the seats, since the tire usually hangs under the bed.) Expect to put a bit of grunt into breaking the nuts loose. They’re supposed to be on tight. Point the handle to the left and lean on it from above, “pumping” on it or even stomping on it to get it to crack the lug loose.

Raise the car, remembering to block a wheel to keep it from rolling over you.

Prepare the location for the plug with the reamer from the repair kit.

Tire repair kits like the one I used are sold at any auto parts store for less than you’ll pay for a single repair at the shop. They’ll come with the reamer, awl, enough plugs for multiple tires, and rubber cement. With the screw out of the way, push the reamer into the hole and twist it as you push it in and out. The reamer has a course surface which creates a uniform surface for the plug to seal against. Leave the reamer in the puncture when you’re done to preserve air pressure.

Prepare your plug for installation.

The kit I used has self-vulcanizing plug material which is wrapped in plastic. It gives a better seal. You cut a piece an inch and a half to two inches long, peel back the wrapper, and slip it through the end of the awl. You want to center it in the awl, with equal length hanging out each side. Then give the plug a light coat of rubber cement.

Remove the reamer and install the plug.

It might surprise you how much effort it takes to push the awl and plug through the hole in the tire, but try to go straight through without twisting the awl. Push it through until there’s about a half an inch of plug material sticking up above the surface before giving the awl a quarter of a turn and slowly pulling it back out.

If you did it right, your tire now looks something like this and you’re almost done!

Put the spare tire on the car so you can go air up the repaired tire.

You might have a really cool cordless impact gun like me. Hopefully your battery charger was plugged in before this so you didn’t end up with a dead battery like I did. [FAIL] Get the spare tire on the car and lock those lug nuts down tight. Ideally, you want to use a torque wrench, but if that was critical, the manufacturers would include them with the spare tire tools, wouldn’t they.

Throw that battery on the charger before you leave to air up that tire!

Yes. It’s very “wak” imo.

Stash the tools and jack with your other Galant VR4 in the garage.

Throw the repaired tire in the trunk of the Galant VR4 that had the flat.

And head out to the gas station to air up your now fixed tire! If there’s a QuikTrip near you, I highly recommend going there. Their stores are always clean, their employees always courteous, and it’s just a quality consumer experience when you go there. If you don’t have QT near you, make sure you’ve got a dollar or two worth of quarters with you, as some stations charge for air.

Don’t forget to bring the tire pressure gauge (and old lawn mower parts)!

Of course, if you’re not going to stop off at Sears to find replacement parts for your 30 year old lawn mower like I was, you just need the gauge.

Once the tire is aired up and you’re back from Sears, swap those tires!

If you’re lucky, the time you spent driving to QuikTrip, airing up the tire, buying a refreshing 32 ounce Ram Jam + Mountain Dew + cherry mixer, driving to Sears, finding your lawnmower parts, and driving back home will be enough time to fully charge the battery pack for your super awesome cordless impact gun, sparing you from having to deal with the lug wrench.

The satisfaction of a job well done.

After you lower the car and remove the jack, make sure you take a step back to admire the results of your efforts. This wasn’t the easiest job in the world, but it wasn’t very hard either, and you hopefully didn’t get royally filthy in the process. Had you gone to Wal-Mart to have this tire repaired, you’d be on your third lap around the store now and hating life. Your car might be “next” one in, too.

If you want something done right, get on the internet and find out how to do it yourself.