Retreads, Camaros and Bumper Jacks

W Christian Mental Ward
by W Christian Mental Ward

‘Merica

Paraphrasing the Drive-By Truckers; I grew up in the south back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

The dinosaurs of were the boats you see in Murlee’s amazing contributions. But at the time, the “cool” ones fit into one of three narrow categories; Camaro, Firebird or Mustang. V8s and solid rear axles enabled them to spin the tires. Our $3.37 per hour minimum wage jobs did not enable us to replace them.

Fortunately the market had a solution; retreads. Bald tires with a new tread pattern effectively glued over the top. You don’t see them very often now, but at one time, they made up 20% of the tire market.

I was living in Atlanta with my roommate and grade school friend, Brent who had a Camaro. Keeping with tradition, under the requisite air shocks was a pair of retreads, or “recaps” from a small outfit in SC, near our parent’s homes.

On one of our commutes to our movie theater jobs, one of the tires began to “round.” When the inner band of the previously bald tire split, ruptured or leaked air under the retread, the tire became round from a forward profile, like a sport bike rear. If had taken that shape over its entirety, there wouldn’t be an issue, but the small bubbles resulted in an oblong tire. Now the solid-axled, leaf-springed, jacked-up Camaro was transformed into a solid-axled, leaf-springed jacked-up clown car.

When this happened, Brent immediately swapped on a retread spare, which promptly rounded. Apparently this was a bad batch of originals, because the other side also rounded.

A long distance phone call (remember those?) to the retread outfit confirmed they would happily replace them, free of charge. All we had to do was bring them in; 160 miles away. Coordinating two days off from our flunkie theater was no small feat and took more approvals than a Pakistan drone strike. I was invested in the process because most of the time I didn’t own a running car. This was one of those times.

In the early morning hours after a shift at Litchfield Cinemas Brent pointed the wobbly Camaro north on I-85. At city speeds the out of sync rear tires jostled the car comically; at freeway speeds it was seriously dangerous. Cursed with youthful arrogance and no other options, we pressed on at 45 MPH, adding an hour to our trip. In the unfamiliar right lane, our Canadian steed rocked me to sleep.

30 minutes later I woke up as the car was shaking like Steve Austin’s ill-fated test plane. We were passing a semi at over 60. The driver’s side retread had enough and let go in a classic fashion. Boom! The car fish tailed. Brent caught the rear, finished his pass and limped to the shoulder. The concept of roadside assistance was a decade away. Digital pagers were just making the scene. Another newfangled technology was scissor jacks. We didn’t have one, we had a bumper jack.

A bumper jack functions by lifting the car via the bumper. A small metal plate was slotted for a 1×1 square pole with notches every quarter of an inch. Over this fit a small ratcheting box that lifts the car. Murphy was kicking us while we were down. The week of wobbling tires took its toll on the lug studs, two snapped during loosening.

FYI, a jacked up 74 Camaro on air shocks will almost exhaust a three foot bumper jack to get the rear wheel airborne. No part of this contraption actually bolted in place, so the whole car swayed with each passing semi, roughly every seven seconds. Miraculously, we got the spare on, but the third stud stripped hallway down. Its 4 AM, we are an hour from anywhere, and the only thing holding on a rounded spare was 2 lug bolts and a stripped third.

There was no option. Off we hobbled; at idle, in the breakdown lane. We arrived after 9 AM. Brent replaced the studs and got three new retreads. The next morning we returned in time to start our shift. I am sure some of the more experienced members of the B&B have retread stories. Low-cost Asian tires of infinitely higher quality have made them almost obsolete, as roadside assistance, cellphones and scissor jacks have done the same for the rest of this story.

Last January in the middle of rural Kansas, I ingested a screw sideways into a rear tire. It was late and I had no cell reception. I swapped the space saver spare on and limped the remaining 300 miles to Omaha at 45 miles an hour, smiling the whole time, because I managed to keep all five studs intact and I had a real jack.

Of course, now I was in Omaha in the winter, trying to purchase a pair high performance specialty tires with snow on the ground…but that is a another story.

W. Christian Mental Ward has owned over 70 cars and destroyed most of them. He is a graduate of Panoz Racing School, loves cartoons and once exceeded the speed of sound. Married to the most patient woman in the world; he has three dogs, a Philosophy degree and a gift for making Derek and Jack wonder if English is actually his first language.

W Christian Mental Ward
W Christian Mental Ward

School teacher, amateur racer, occasional story teller.

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  • Cale1914 Cale1914 on Dec 03, 2013

    When you mentioned Recaps I automatically thought D's Recaps...they were a pretty popular local outfit in Columbia during the late 70's to early 80's...or at least from all the commercials they had. I remember by the time I started driving and was a poor college student who needed tires for my 77' Olds Cutlass S with bumper jack too...they weren't selling recaps as much...you could buy used on the cheap....or for a little more Blemished tires...I recall getting a whole set of Radial T/A's with Blem stamped on them for about the same cost as those cheaper white letter tires.

  • Allan850glt Allan850glt on Feb 24, 2014

    Bumper jacks..precarious suckers that they seem to be. My only experience was with my "fun car" from the summer of 2010: my buff-gold/yellow 1973 Lincoln Mark IV. Purchased from the estate of a pal who passed untimely. He loved the car and it was quite nice, fully functional and rock solid being transplanted here to Western NY from SC. It was shod with four rather decent BF Goodrich Whitewall radials but one trip to work on the Kensington Expressway and a belt shift left the passenger front radial a mess. I limped her from the expressway to my office by the airport. Once parked, trunk open and jack out. Crud, a bumper jack. I was really hesitant as I wasn't sure how those 37 year old bumper rams were going to hold, even if it "appeared" to be rot free. The deed had to be done so there I was pumping this contraption away, parked amongst svelte Accords, Saabs, BMWs, you get the scene? That enormous front end lifted up in the air with no problem and I swapped on the spare without losing a limb or seeing that boat crash down on the tarmac. Guess they aren't so bad as long as they're not fatigued from years of use or your bumper mounts aren't rotted. Still, I'll always keep a floor jack in the trunk of the big brougham-tastic rides I pick up for the warm weather. Keeping one in the Volvo doesn't hurt either.

  • 1995 SC At least you can still get one. There isn't much for Ford folks to be happy about nowadays, but the existence of the Mustang and the fact that the lessons from back in the 90s when Ford tried to kill it and replace it with the then flavor of the day seem to have been learned (the only lessons they seem to remember) are a win not only for Ford folks but for car people in general. One day my Super Coupe will pop its headgaskets (I know it will...I read it on the Internet). I hope I will still be physically up to dropping the supercharged Terminator Cobra motor into it. in all seriousness, The Mustang is a.win for car guys.
  • Lorenzo Heh. The major powers, military or economic, set up these regulators for the smaller countries - the big guys do what they want, and always have. Are the Chinese that unaware?
  • Lorenzo The original 4-Runner, by its very name, promised something different in the future. What happened?
  • Lorenzo At my age, excitement is dangerous. one thing to note: the older models being displayed are more stylish than their current versions, and the old Subaru Forester looks more utilitarian than the current version. I thought the annual model change was dead.
  • Lorenzo Well, it was never an off-roader, much less a military vehicle, so let the people with too much money play make believe.
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