The joys of working with junk... Update

I'm in the middle of my annual haying frenzy, a day or two of cutting hay, waiting a day or two, glued to the weather channel, rake and bale, get it in the barn. If the weather holds. 

Not a high buck, modern process, most of the equipment dates to the 1970s (the raking tractor is a 1948 Ford 8N) and we bring in less than a thousand small squares, but it's enough for the sheep, goats, horses and whatever else my sister finds at the sales barn... I came out today to find the sun shining and a flat tire on the old 3rd or 4th-hand New Holland ground-drive rake.

 Ok, it's been neglected... Hmmm, what to do. A quick perusal of the used tire pile failed to produce a 165x 13 tire... but it's a tubeless tire... Somehow I coaxed the bead to reset and magically, it appears to be still holding air. Just for safety, I put in a partial bottle of Slime stopleak and got my raking/baling done. 

 But now the dilemma. If this was 1985, I could head to any wrecking yard for a used 13" tire from a Honda Civic or Toyota or whatever, but when was the last time you saw a 13" radial tire? A glance at the other wheel revealed an even older weather-checked but intact tire, a tube-type 5.60x15. That might even be original? But where would I find an affordable VW Beetle sized tire?  And the mismatched sizes isn't an ideal situation. Stay tuned...

Update 06/2025

  OK, a year later. Last fall a friend discovered there are 13" trailer tires on sale at Princess Auto (the Harbour Freight of Canada (sort-of). It came on a 5 bolt rim, so using my handy bead breaker  (bottom) I moved the tire to the hay rake rim and all is good- hopefully for another 20 years.

 

The farmers beadbreaker...

Ready to go!