from the tire shop-late 1960's

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I was asked to mention my time there. It was a business started/owned by two brothers-located in what is now a third ring suburb of Minneapolis. Population then as a mostly farm township was probably 3-4000. Likely 20 times that now as it is fully developed into a higher income city. The building stood alone on US Hwy 169 across from the Northrop King research testing fields. The main line was Goodyear with others for lower $ options. We did cars up thru 18 wheelers(I remember us 'locking' the air chuck onto the valve stem on the split rim wheels and then jumping behind a wall-if 'things' weren't right, that 'locking' ring could do alot of damage-later we got a bright red steel cage to air up those puppies=much better!). What made this business different from most was the customer site work done at a long list of area auto dealerships. We had a small fleet of 5 or 6 Chev stepvans outfited with a compressor and Coats 10-10 tire changer-also a floor jack and bubble balancer and some tire inventory. A sales guy and his 'flunky' would pull off the worn out balony skins off used car trade-ins and install recaps on the low end and first line Goodyears on the high end trades. I left in 1970 as the military was after me with a low(bad)lottery number. Later, over the years I would drive by occasionally and notice the building expanded a few times. I stopped in there a few years ago as I noticed a Toyo sign and I was driving my wife's Nissan 350 that has Proxies that I wanted info on. The place was dead with no customers and I was met by a big unfriendly fella who said he'd 'bailed out' the brothers buying it as it was about to go under shortly ater he arrived from Iran. Oh well!
 
Cool story! Can you link to Google streetview?

I patronized a tire shop owned by an old guy and his jerk son. I only went there for state inspections, which are capped at $18 and a money loser, so they were never all that nice to me. They didn't have a customer waiting area, so I sat on some steps going up to the 2nd floor.

Place was styled like a barn/ loft, and they stored tires upstairs, and had a chute that lead down to the shop area. They'd go upstairs, pick a tire or tires, and send 'em down the chute with a satisfying noise.

They had a mosquito infested back yard full of nearly bald tires they'd sell you for $25. No thanks.

They did gravel truck tires and had a 100 lb soaking wet tech roll one in, dump it onto the shop floor, go at it with irons, accomplish his mission, then roll it on out for another one. Dude reminded me of a midget wrestling an alligator.

Place closed. As a mechanically inclined customer I liked being in the shop. Sometimes I even got to sit on my car on the lift while they tugged at my underpinnings.
 
A high school buddy worked in his dad's one-man alignment & balance shop. Tire truing was done on a machine that cut off out-of-round parts of the tread. Some of the tires that came out of it were near-bald at the shaved parts, but at least they were round and rode smoothly. Dynamic balancing was done on a machine where the shaft created a spark in a window when a button was pushed to show the point of rotation that was eccentric when a button was pushed, and an experienced operator could do a good job. No readout about the recommended weights needed, just the location and use your experience to guess at the weight, try again, test again. Static balancing was done first on this machine, then spin it and do the dynamic balancing.

Alignment was done on the rack with a line scratched on a rotated tire, then measure for toe in. A bubble level device fit the hub to measure camber, and when the wheels were turned this device measured caster.

This was back in the time of bias ply tires, and when 2 ply nylon was replacing 4 ply cord structure.
 
My Dad drove a `49 Plymouth as a daily beater in the late 50s early 60s. Saturday morning was when I rode with him to get recaps. The recap shop was a wooden lean-to affair that was a dark labyrinth of tire presses, open flames, and sweating men. There was one old guy, when mounting a tire, who would shout "bingo!" when the bead popped out.

I can still visualize peering into that shop as a 8 year old kid at what today I would describe as Dante`s "Inferno".
The owner, a childhood friend of my Dad`s, was referred to as "Hoyt". I was generally ignored while the tire business was going on, but was expected to have enough sense to not get hurt or killed.

Years later I heard that the place burned to the ground, and I`m not surprised....
 
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