Hitting tires with hammer? Wtf

When one of my tires gets low, I just park next to another truck and take some air out of his tires. It’s not as easy as it sounds, though.

 

That was a hangin' offense back in the Old West....

 

Could always just bet the lizard 5 bucks she can not blow that hard

 

Tip her an extra $5 if she can....

 

cuz it's easier than using a co-driver's head..???

 

This is how I feel about "thumping" tires. So what? At least the driver is actually inspecting! I thumped my tires because it was easier to tell they had air. Sometimes in the dark it can be difficult to determine those inside tires were inflated. Another reason I did not use a gauge everyday (I did use them) was those "seals" in those valve stems can get rotten over time. I was in California once using a gauge and after I removed the gauge I noticed the air now coming out. I later decided to only gauge when I was at a terminal or noticed a tire was way under inflated. It is impossible to "thump" a tire to tell what the reading is. However my overriding point is stop worrying about how another driver next to you does their inspections. It really is none of your business.

 

See, that's a "pro tip"; don't voluntarily do something that can have adverse consequences when addressing said consequences becomes much more difficult, or even impossible. A good driver really learns this when they spend long periods of time in remote areas, i.e. survival skills.

 

In my case I kept things like valve stems and gladhand gaskets along with some lightbulbs in a small box in my under the bunk storage. I had a valve stem wrench and a 50' air hose with a gladhand I could attach to my brake air supply line. It was just a royal pain in the patoot to drag all that crap out when in essence all I needed to do was "thump" the tire. One thing I did do with only my tractor was put liquid soap on those stems to check for bad valve stems. Most of the time when I had to drag that crap out was on a trailer after either a repower or drop and hook. Oh one more tip, when having a tire changed ask the person doing it to toss that valve stem and replace it. When I had my tires changed on my POV I had the whole stem replaced. That crap dryrots horribly!

 

I use a rubber mallet. Bigger head tells me how off the tire may be from the sound and feel. I can easily tell 40 from 80.

 

Lol. I can tell 40 from looking at it. 80 is only 5 psi above a flat tire so that would not hard to spot on a steer or outside tire.