Changing a wheel

Driving down the (Dutch) motorway yesterday, I saw one of the small motorway trucks with the led keep left arrow illuminated, parked up on the hard shoulder. As I got closer, I saw he was protecting an artic, and as I passed, I saw the Romanian driver of the artic changing a wheel on his trailer.

It got me thinking, how many of you are still allowed or expected by your company to change your own wheels, especially if driving in mainland Europe. If you’ve changed wheels in the past, who showed you how to do it? Do you have any horror stories? And for the ‘old uns’ on here who’s trucks had a starting handle. What was it like changing wheels with solid tyres on? Did the bloke holding the red flag give you a hand?

Before I started this trucking lark earlier this year, I did last summer driving tour coaches around Europe with excitable young Australians. On the pre season training trip, us drivers were told that we would be expected to change our own wheel and were given 90 minutes training on how to do it on a campsite just outside Rome. However, even the driver instructor was struggling with changing the wheel. He first had to deal with seized bolts before the spare could even be lowered down from its storage area under the coach. He then had to struggle getting the old wheel off and the spare on. At the end, he was black from head to toe and had bleeding grazed knuckles. And all this was done in the quiet and calm confines of a campsite, not on the side of a busy road.

I thought at the time, ‘like ■■■■ am I changing the wheel on the side of some Italian autostrada, risking life or injury while a bus load of young tourists expect me to get it right. The company can send out a tyre fitter or the bus will just stay where it is’. Luckily, I got through the whole season without a blow out or breakdown.

Just some photos from my holiday shuttle driver days. How many drivers does it take to change a wheel■■?

Continued.

There don t need any training.If you can change wheel in car that you can change in truck.Now most truck drivers from ЕЕ have special tool kit to turn offeasy nuts.

some mobs i work for then if abroad,you get the option.£100 cash and change it yourself,or wait for the tyre man.the options yours as the kit will be in the truck to change it.sometimes i will,others i wont.all depends on where id be and how wrecked i am.

Andrejs:
There don t need any training.If you can change wheel in car that you can change in truck.Now most truck drivers from ЕЕ have special tool kit to turn offeasy nuts.

Hmm, I’ve changed plenty of car wheels in my time but I reckon I’d struggle with a truck wheel. Just watching the instructor cursing while trying to get the wheel off and the spare on in 90 degrees of Italian heat was enough to tell me that. And he was doing the inner wheel too so two wheels to get off and on.

dieseldog999:
some mobs i work for then if abroad,you get the option.£100 cash and change it yourself,or wait for the tyre man.the options yours as the kit will be in the truck to change it.sometimes i will,others i wont.all depends on where id be and how wrecked i am.

The mob I was on for were definitely not offering any cash inducements. They were just too tight to want to call out a fitter.

I’ve probably done around a dozen in my time. On the CTR trailers Kepstowe sometimes used, the wheel would almost invariably be rusted solid to the rim, we used to replace two wheel nuts, opposite each other, and just screw them up a couple of turns, then screw the truck round and round in circles until the wheel broke free from the rim and attempted to fall off.

After 40+ years and hundreds of times changing wheels it’s not a big thing.Up here it is still the norm as we are a bit ‘‘in the past’’.Until 2000 when Pilkinton stopped putting spare on the unit[still had one on trlr]most Dutch co’s i worked for still had spares and expected you to change them abroad.It was considered ‘‘part of the job’’.I am surprised that the guys with the coach don’t even have a pair of overalls and gloves.

hutpik:
After 40+ years and hundreds of times changing wheels it’s not a big thing.Up here it is still the norm as we are a bit ‘‘in the past’’.Until 2000 when Pilkinton stopped putting spare on the unit[still had one on trlr]most Dutch co’s i worked for still had spares and expected you to change them abroad.It was considered ‘‘part of the job’’.I am surprised that the guys with the coach don’t even have a pair of overalls and gloves.

I’d be more worried about those possible ‘truckers ■■■■’ stains in the tarmac that they’re laid in :open_mouth:

Top marks for not showing “builders crack” at anytime - well not on the photos anyway.

Once upon a time running to far away places we had to do the tyre repairs as well

And help the locals with air

I changed a lot of trailer wheels in the mid seventies when I worked for an IVECO dealership that also ran tippers - unfortunately they had a salt contract out of Winsford and some of the wheelnuts had to be removed with the hot spanner when the selection of pipes and scaffolding poles failed. :smiley:

We had a wheel store and we would go out to the truck where ever it was in a pickup with a wheel and assorted tools and jacks.

The drivers usually helped out…by offering to roll you a ciggie :smiley:

In our firm we get a £250 bonus if we change it ourselves…

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Changed about five or…

Six in my time.

Almost all went bang in Spain.

Luckily I never had one I couldn’t change. You need a good jack, solid ground and if you can, be on the shaded side of the trailer.

I changed one once outside a small bar between Granada and Motril, with the usual swearing and profanities. After about 10 minutes I realised I had an audience of Japanese tourists snapping away like the paparazi chasing Kylie Minogue. They had all decanted from the bus they were on to come and gawp at me.

No, we never got extra money for doing it back then.

I always change the wheels on my trailer. Sure its just 19,5 ones. But dont use a jack,i use my air suspension. Lower the trailer then block of Wood or two under the airbag then raise it and tyre in the air. Nice and easy so no problem at al.

Danne

dieseldog999:
some mobs i work for then if abroad,you get the option.£100 cash and change it yourself,or wait for the tyre man.the options yours as the kit will be in the truck to change it.sometimes i will,others i wont.all depends on where id be and how wrecked i am.

Exact same, we have the option of calling out the fitter, depends what’s going on and what the weather’s like.

A.

Dirty Dan:
Lower the trailer then block of Wood or two under the airbag then raise it and tyre in the air. Nice and easy so no problem at al.

Danne

There is a problem if…

The trailer is on springs.

Changed wheels many times on the hard shoulder.
It was especially pleasurable pre Super Single days, when the inside wheel was jammed on and you had to lie on your back kicking it with both feet, on a wet road and ■■■■■■■ it down.
Would I do it today?.. Would I ■■■■ !
More bloody sense these days, and not as lean mean, and indeed keen as I was then. :smiley:
I could imagine some of todays sorry arsed excuses for drivers doing it now…not. :laughing:

Did loads of wheel changes, and would still do…always carried a small piece of scaffold pole, a pair of gloves and a pair coverals…two jacks were needed if the nuts were tight, and need to rest the wheel brace on the elbow of the brace, and a spray of wd 40 also helped…my boss would always offer to send a tyre fitter, but i am willing to help out when needed. he supplies all the equipment and 2 spares…my only problem is the heat, but heres a story : Last year i woke up to a flat front tyre in the services in france, but when i enquired at the cash desk as to where i can get a tyre fitter, i was told none would come out, unless i walked back along the motorway, and phoned the breakdown company in charge of that stretch…very weird to encourage a pedestrian to do that…but lucky for me, just as i started to walk a police car stopped and offered to phone them so a good job was done…i would have done it myself but my spare had been used. Many drivers still do it, and some carry innertubes to get them out of a fix…but most foreign drivers would stop and help where they can.

Changed ■■■■ loads of wheels. Back in my younger days, I would think nothing of stripping them down and repairing a puncture or putting a new tube in. No lane 1 closures in them days, I only wore a hi vis when it was dark.
Good ole days working for NTS :stuck_out_tongue: