After having my first flat tire, luckily at my home airstrip, I am trying to find an idea or a tool to jack up a wheel. Is there a very small, lightweight jack available? It would only have to lift a few hundred pounds on my airplane. A bottle jack is too large. Any jack would have to fit under about 5.5 inches. An extensive Google search has not turned up anything. What do you guys use? It would be nice to find a small rubber bladder to inflate and lift the wheel using a small air pump. Then some tire irons and a new tube and I'd be set. I'd hate to have a flat in the backcountry.

John

If you put an air bladder under your wheel and lift it, how do you take off the wheel to fix it?

I'd just use a very small bottle jack. Get or cut a log and put it between the gear legs. Jack up the log closer to the wheel that has the flat. You would only need it to go up a little to get the wheel off the ground.

Or, if your tire will pump up. Pump it up and put a rock under the gear leg at the end. Let the tire go flat and then put another rock under the tire and pump it up again. Put a bigger rock under the gear leg. Then when the tire goes flat you can pull the rock out from under the tire and it will be off the ground. Better yet, take a can of Slime and change it at home.

I changed a flat on my old Kitfox in Hood River Oregon by blocking the axle up with found scraps of lumber, and then digging (with a screwdriver) underneath until I had enough clearance to pull the tire off. "Crude but primitive."

This year, while up in Kalispell Montana, I had a flat in the tailwheel. I just dealt with that by keeping the tail up until I got home.

A jack would be way down on my list of stuff to pack around, I just havn't had that many tire problems to put up with the weight of even a small one, other ways to do it are feasible and weigh nothing.

Wow you guys are creative.....when the Scout got a flat in the back country, I simply called Wup he took care of everything. No more flats. I keep his number handy in case it ever happens again.

Carry tie down anchors and a couple of ratchet straps. Use the aforementioned items to pull down opposite wing to lift flat tire off ground.

bumper wrote:Carry tie down anchors and a couple of ratchet straps. Use the aforementioned items to pull down opposite wing to lift flat tire off ground.

That is how I seen it done.... Works very well. OR you could call John Grahm @ 769-587-1212

I have a flat tire kit in a bag that I carry. Everything I need to change a tire except another tire itself. For a jack I have a scissors jack from a Chevy van. Piece of crap to actually have to use on a van but good for the plane. Folds flat and weighs probably 5-7 pounds. Bo's have a little insert that goes into the axle hole that you jack up.

bumper wrote:Carry tie down anchors and a couple of ratchet straps. Use the aforementioned items to pull down opposite wing to lift flat tire off ground.

Damn good idea! This has never occurred to me, guess I need to think outside the box. I carry a spare (worn out) t/w tire & tube & a spare inner tube, also a clamp-type jack-pad for the gear legs.. Used to carry a little bottle jack but it somehow seemed to quit working properly after it had been carried in a horizontal position for a couple years. ??
I'll have to remember the pull-the-other-wing-down trick. That'll work great on an airport with tiedowns handy, but maybe not so much on an off-airport site where you'd have to install one yourself.

I'm getting some of these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcdmH_hVWBY

Hey dirtstrip, if they don't put side walls on them, they would be slinging dirt and rocks every which way. Looks like a whole bunch of little scoops.

But the water landing should be sensational.

I use a small scissor jack from a foreign car and that green slime works wonders, but its not certified.

I carry a can of "Fix-a-Flat".
Jim

hotrod150 wrote:Used to carry a little bottle jack but it somehow seemed to quit working properly after it had been carried in a horizontal position for a couple years. ??

Look for a little rubber plug on the housing. Pull it out and pour in some brake fluid. Replace plug.

I have a modest tire kit that will be a pain in the ass if I ever need to use it, but is light and unobtrusive the other 99.9% of the time.
Valve stem tool and a couple of extra schrader valve stem cores and caps
Tube patch kit (Slime Brand)
Compact bike pump
Braided cable valve stem extender (like you see with inside duals)
Wrench and socket sets
Straps for opposite strut, as mentioned above
Silicone (High-Temp RTV) to help with the beads, but really for firewall and engine stuff
Have considered adding a tailwheel tube at times. Been down the same road as courierguy, above
A little talc would be pretty easy to carry too
***Headnet for the mosquitoes while screwing with all of the above***

I met a guy in Canada once who had blown a bike tube way out in the bush. He stuffed his flat tire with spruce branches and rode it in over some astounding number of miles.

-DP

BTW

I had several tailwheel flats this year. It finally dawned on me that I was running way too low of air pressure in my 8" Matco, it couldn't have been my landings as they are all smooth, well maybe it could have. I now run 45 lbs, was running only 20 or so, and no flats or leaks (due to pinched tubes) since then.

I've had fix-a -flat turn Butyl tubes into chewing gum.....and if the fluid and or Slime "puddles" inside the tube, there could be some unusual vibration and the very unbalanced tire is instantly accelerated....sure would work in a pinch though....anybody have any real world experience with either product in aircraft tires??

bumper wrote:Carry tie down anchors and a couple of ratchet straps. Use the aforementioned items to pull down opposite wing to lift flat tire off ground.

I'm curious just how well that would work. Though even if it held the flat stationary, one could dig underneath to change the tire/wheel, that would do the trick.

In one of Bud Helmericks' books he talks of doing that out on the pack ice with his Cub to fix a broken landing gear. He used ropes to tie everything together. Really surprised no one snitched him off and he got a certificate suspension out of the deal !!!

Gump

denalipilot wrote:

hotrod150 wrote:Used to carry a little bottle jack but it somehow seemed to quit working properly after it had been carried in a horizontal position for a couple years. ??

Look for a little rubber plug on the housing. Pull it out and pour in some brake fluid. Replace plug.

snip

-DP

Red Alert!! Do not put automotive brake fluid (DOT stuff) in your hydaulic jack. You'll get away with using 5606 (the red mil-spec small GA brake fluid). However, jacks really want hydrualic jack oil (cheap enough at auto parts) or hydraulic tractor fluid (even cheaper if you like your fluid in quantity).

bumper wrote:

denalipilot wrote:

hotrod150 wrote:Used to carry a little bottle jack but it somehow seemed to quit working properly after it had been carried in a horizontal position for a couple years. ??

Look for a little rubber plug on the housing. Pull it out and pour in some brake fluid. Replace plug.

snip

-DP

Red Alert!! Do not put automotive brake fluid (DOT stuff) in your hydaulic jack. You'll get away with using 5606 (the red mil-spec small GA brake fluid). However, jacks really want hydrualic jack oil (cheap enough at auto parts) or hydraulic tractor fluid (even cheaper if you like your fluid in quantity).

Hmm... Ok, I trust you know. Maybe it was power steering fluid I poured in to one of them. Worked fine then and since. But on Bumper's say-so I'll go along with hydraulic fluid. Pour something into the plug hole to restore the jack is the point.

bumper wrote:Red Alert!! Do not put automotive brake fluid (DOT stuff) in your hydaulic jack.

Brake fluid IS hydraulic oil. Specifically, it's hydraulic oil that can handle very high temperatures. I say it should work great in a jack.