weight for it

saturday kinda sucked…

…granted, i started a lil’ late due to exhaustion. this heat, combined with the health issues, just really takes it out of me completely. i get home with nothing left to give, and saturday i think we even dipped into the negative. i usually get home before ten, saturday it was after midnight.

but i’m getting ahead of myself here…

…it was an unusually social route. not that i’m not typically social, but every stop seemed to have one conversation of, shall we say, “meaningful length”, which with thirteen shops that can extend out your day. i realized how late i was when i was wrapping up one of such chats at the 183 atomic, looked at my watch, and said, “holy fuck – it’s ten and i’m still at the shop!”.

i called the wife on the way back to lakeway vs on the way OUT of lakeway and let her know what was up.

but then things got extended – i had a milkshake craving, so i stopped at p-terry’s only for the truck in front of me to, apparently, order for fifteen people because it was just them ahead of me and from the time i ordered my shake to the time i got it was about half an hour. total insanity. but, at least i figured, from there it was smooth sailing. and it was…until a half mile from the house when i turned onto stueve lane. that’s when i heard a sudden “fwap-fwap-fwap” noise in perfect sync with my road speed, letting me know it was a tire or wheel thing and i could hear it coming from the right rear wheel, so i stopped in the middle of the road since that late it’s that dead.

i saw nothing, but it was also really dark.

i got back in, started rolling, and the noise continued. i checked the tire pressure and all was good. i postulated that the railroad tracks might dislodge whatever was the culprit but going over them changed nothing, save for the tire light coming on a block later. i was a quarter mile from the house, so i just went for it. when i got home i used the flashlight on my phone, saw a hunk of metal hanging out of the inside edge of the tire that was considerably shinier and thicker than your average nail or screw, decided that the tire was toast but there was nothing i was doing after midnight, and went inside.

the next day i was recounting the events for os and some of his friends and his buddy israel said he was really curious what it was, and i said i was, too. i’d pledged to not go outside that day, but my curiosity got the better of me, so i grabbed my longest needle nose and went to extract the metal shard, which broke off in the pliers…

it wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to see what it was – a lead clip wheel weight. NOT the kind my car uses, it must have been on the road…but with no piercing point or sharp edge i’m still baffled how it went THROUGH a fucking pirelli run flat and ruined it. monday i pulled the wheel and could get a better look at it…

that’s the “clip” in “clip weight” you see just out of the tread there. it was in there so well i picked the whole wheel and tire up by it using linesman’s pliers to no avail. finally got it out once i was at the tire spot and we pulled the ruined pirelli off the rim…

yeah – that whole chunk you see PAST the clip? that was in my tire/wheel. how the fuck did this happen? here’s the piece “reunited”, in case you’re curious…

looks pretty artsy laying on 150 year marble, doesn’t it?

so, she’ll be resting for the most part today. i’m about to head out and work on quinn & grey – side mirror and oil change, respectively. i’ve got another set of pirelli’s on the way for m, this time non run-flat, wider, and with a bit less sidewall (not my choice, but the size recommended by the wheel folk) so we’ll see how those go. hopefully the goodyear i’ve got on her keeps us rolling smooth till then!