Tire Servicing Safety: Don’t reinvent the wheel with Andy Wood - Part 2

Tire Servicing Safety is often overlooked unless it’s your
full-time job.  Hazards from lifting and repositioning a
heavy tire in an awkward position or being struck by a falling or
exploding tire are all common exposures for workers serving tires
in the shop or in the field. In the conclusion of this two-part
Tire Safety episode with Andy Wood, MEMIC's Forest Products
Programs Manager, we dive deeper into preventing tire-related
injuries, and how we can keep ourselves safe when handling,
changing, or servicing a tire.


Peter Koch: [00:00:04] Welcome to the MEMIC
Safety Experts Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Koch, manager of
Digital Technology for Lost Control and safety management
consultant with MEMIC. This is part two of our tire safety
episode with Andy Wood, Manager of Forest Products Safety
Services. Andy brings many years of professional experience
dealing with hand and mechanical logging operations and servicing
his own equipment when he worked in the industry. In part one of
this podcast, we address the regulations how more than just big
rig service centers are covered by these regs, and then began to
discuss the different injuries that can be caused when servicing
tires. In part two we will roll into more injury causes and then
different controls. And as only Andy can, he draws from his
personal experience to give us great perspective around why these
are sometimes hidden or overlooked hazards. So let's pick up
where we left [00:01:00] off.


Andy Wood: [00:01:03] So let's move along from
our frequent injuries. We talked about some struck by injuries.
We've talked about manual material handling. But let's talk about
some more severe injuries. And we're growing from the back and
shoulder and wrist injury or from the crushing injury that
happens from a tire falling on someone. But really, when we get
into a tire exploding, we're getting into ballistic type of
injuries. So let's talk some more about those and what kinds of
injuries come out of a tire exploding and what might cause the
tire to fail catastrophically.


Andy Wood: [00:01:37] Yeah, you mentioned the
ballistics. I'll just preface this by saying an injury I get
quite frequently. If a tire blows up for whatever reason, I'm
usually going to get a claim of ringing in the ears or the
concussive force has blown out the eardrums. So even if a person
doesn't get hit with anything or physically damaged, just the
concussive force of the pressure in the immediate area is going
to blow out his eardrums [00:02:00] or cause that ringing, which
sometimes the ringing will just go away in a few days if things
if it wasn't too bad but it could certainly be much worse. The
tires when they blow out, those are the serious injuries. We've
had people struck by the tires itself, struck by the part of the
tire that gets shredded, struck by the tire cage when it goes
screaming across the floor and the garage. I mentioned the
concussive force, pretty, pretty blunt trauma, pretty, pretty
serious injuries. A couple causes, I guess weak spots where
they're going to fail. First one is the bead rim failure. So
that's a question of when the tire usually during re inflation,
because that's when a person is going to be right there. The bead
of the tire goes over, either rips or it goes over the edge of
the of the edge of the tire. So this is where the rim charts come
in. You've got to make sure even if you put a new tire on a new
rim, you can miscalculate. And the rim charts would tell you that
they're not compatible, but [00:03:00] by looking at them, you
can't tell the difference. So you've got to have RIM charts to
make sure that you're matching, whether it's a single piece or
multi piece wheel, that all the components and the tire are all
compatible. The bead will be damaged frequently in operation and
it can be damaged when it's dismounted and remounted. So the bead
inspection is really important to make sure the beat of the tire
is still in good condition when it goes back on the rim. Now the
other thing is that the rim where the bead seats can be damaged
as well. I don't believe this was as common a problem with the
steel rims that folks always used to run, like on a on a truck
tire, a tractor trailer type tire on road. They've switched to a
lot of aluminum tires. We're starting to do that in the woods as
well. And what we're finding is with the severe conditions that
we have in the woods, you know, the logging roads aren't level,
they're not paved. A lot of times you're rolling your tires,
you're going around the corner and the weight is shifting to the
inside tire. So the beat of the tire actually chafes on the rim
and wears into the aluminum rim. So [00:04:00] the rims are
getting deformed so that you can put a brand new tire back on a
used rim. And even though it matches based on the charts, the rim
charts, the rim has been damaged bad enough that the tire during
inflation will blow right over it. And that's one that was
probably one of the at one year a couple of years ago, the
biggest injury I had was from a bead rim failure. And what
happened was they were putting a new tire back on a used rim.
They were re inflating it and the tire blew over the rim. No one
got hit with anything physically other than the force, the air
and the mechanic that was standing right in front of it was blown
right across the garage into the next bay. You got wedged
underneath the drive train or the rear axle of a truck that was
in the next bay. And it was every part of his body I think was
damaged. He had both shoulders needed to be operated on knees
just from the force of him being blown backwards, hyperextended
his knees in the opposite direction. You had dental surgery, he
had [00:05:00] cuts and bruises, and it just went on and on. He
would go through one surgery. He would recover from a little
while. He'd go to light duty for a little while, and then he'd go
have another surgery. So in that case, it was just a question of
they make these little rim gauge rim flange gauges. When the tire
is off, you just hold it up there and see how much wear the rim
has, to see if it's safe to reuse.


Andy Wood: [00:05:21] They looked at the tire or
they looked at the wheel afterwards and determined, you know, the
rim was worn out. It really couldn't be used again. And when they
put it together, it seemed okay until they inflated it and it
came right off. So the bead rim is one failure point. Another one
that we hear often is what's called the zipper failure or the
zipper rupture. And that's usually in the sidewall and the upper
portion of the sidewall close to the tread. And again, it's
usually during re inflation, it's going to result from a tire
that has been either overloaded or run soft. And when someone
goes to reinflate it, what happens is when the tire [00:06:00] is
overloaded or runs. Soft. It flexes the sidewalls beyond the
designed parameters, and it causes the steel belts in the
sidewall to flex. If you took a wire and bent it in the same spot
several times, eventually break right there. Same things
happening in the sidewall when they get squatted from too much
weight or from being underinflated, one or two strands of that
metal cord may break in there. And then when you reinflate it,
the casing itself can't hold the pressure. And there's a weak
spot where those one or two chords, the casing will start to
expand between those and it'll pop the chord on the next side and
the cord or the next side and the next chord down. And that's why
you hear that pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And people call it a
zipper failure because it sounds like you're opening a zipper and
it'll just the entire sidewall will just open wide up and it
release all that air at one time. So if the tire if you get the
air in the face, that's bad, that may blow you across the room.
Or if the tire is against the harder surface, it may propel a
tire across the garage floor. [00:07:00] There's a guideline,
it's called the 80% rule, which really is intended for just this
situation. If you check a tire and it is lower than 80% of what
its running capacity is, what it's generally designed to be run
at. So if you're less than 80% of that, the tire should be
removed and treated as a flat repair. In other words, the tire
should be dismounted from the rim, should be inspected inside and
out, put back in a tire cage and inflated there because there's
just no way to know whether damage occurred or not without that
close inspection. And we just had one of those on a logging
truck. A person was had a loaded truck, got to the mill, noticed
the soft tire, went to reinflate it, and the tire blew in the
process. So the injury there again was just the concussive force.
It was a ringing in his ear and damage to his eardrums.


Peter Koch: [00:07:50] Wow. So it's a good rule,
that 80% rule. I hadn't thought of it that way, but if you've got
less than 80% of what the capacity is or what it's supposed to be
inflated [00:08:00] to, then you've got to treat it like there's
been some damage someplace because under normal conditions, the
tire shouldn't lose that much tire pressure. So if you're just
running from wherever you're landing is bring in logs to the yard
or bringing logs to the mill or bringing logs to wherever. It
shouldn't lose that much. So identifying it, especially if you've
done your inspection prior to work that day and all the tires
were properly inflated. You get someplace and it's 80% less or
it's less than 80% of its capacity or inflation. Treat it like
it's been damaged. Just don't try to reinflate it because you're
putting more pressure than the vessel can handle or potentially
put more pressure than the vessel can handle.


Andy Wood: [00:08:43] And in theory, the tires
have all been in the pre-trip you know, the tires have all been
checked that morning. So that's all air you've lost that day. So,
yeah, you're right. That's a lot to lose in a few hours or even
several hours of service.


Peter Koch: [00:08:55] And that's a good point.
You know, in theory and we both talk [00:09:00] about that as
it's a given that it should be done. But I don't know if
everybody's doing that every time. And I imagine, like the
greater the potential for failure, the bigger the truck, the
bigger the tire, the heavier the load that you're going to be
checking those. But even with even if you're running a work
truck, you know, a three quarter ton or a full ton truck and
you're using it for plowing or your hauling landscape material
from point A to point B if you haven't done your PRE-TRIP
inspection and inspected your tires, making sure that they're all
properly inflated before you start. When you get someplace and
you notice a soft tire, you have no idea. Was it soft before you
left? Was it soft from the night before? Was it soft between the
point where you loaded it and you got to where you noticed it so
you don't really know. So that information of what were what's
what is the condition of the vehicle, condition of the tires
before you start is a very important [00:10:00] thing to have a
piece of information that you need to have in order to make a
good decision later on down the road, if you notice something
that's not functional for you. Excellent. So let's talk a little
bit about, I don't know, maybe some you talked about a cage for
re inflation and we talked about servicing some of these tires.
You're going to treat it like it's a flat. So you get a tire that
you notice is soft and you're going to have to bring it in for
servicing. So the person that's servicing it is going to get this
tire. It's not completely deflated. It's still got 80% of it's
pressure inside of it. There's injuries that happen because
you're treating a tire or you're dealing with the tire before you
deflate it. So can you talk a little bit about that, maybe some
of the injuries that might happen that way? And what are some of
the recommendations to deal with a partially inflated tire,
something that doesn't pass that 80% rule?


Andy Wood: [00:10:57] Right. The standard is
pretty clear on that. And [00:11:00] you will see this repeated.
Over and over and over in the TIA training or the in the OSHA
standard that any one of those things you notice out about a tire
that it's been damaged or run slack or before you're going to
service it or do anything to it, you're going to remove the
valves, then you're going to deflate by removal of valves. Then
taking the valve stem completely out is the only way you're going
to ensure that all the air gets out of it. You have a tire that's
run soft and people say, well, that's, that's leaking anyways.
There's not much pressure in there and they'll go and try and
service it and it'll be a lot more pressure than they expected.
Actually, I had that happen to a on a forklift at a sawmill. They
had a tire that was going flat and several days they would just
air it up and use it and air it up and use it. And finally they
got the time to take it off. And there's in one bolt circle,
there was two sets of nuts. There was there were big nuts and
little nuts. So they took I can't remember which one was which,
but they took one set of nuts off, say it was the big nuts. They
took all the big nuts off [00:12:00] and they couldn't get the
wheel off the hub. So what are they going to do next? Well,
they'll go to the little nuts. When they took the little nuts
off, they just took two or three of them off and the tire
exploded. And what had happened was the it was a two piece rim
and one set of nuts held the two pieces of the rim together and
the other set of the nuts tell the whole assembly on the hub of
the forklift. So when they couldn't get the rim off, they went to
the other ones and they were actually unbolting the two sections
of tire. And even though the tire was flat or considered flat
under the weight of the forklift, there was enough pressure in
there to still blow the tire and damage the rim, you know, deform
the rim and damage the tire. And the person got hit in the leg.
It wasn't a terribly big injury, but certainly there's a lot of
there is a huge force there when that energy is released all at
once. So, yeah, the first thing you're going to do under any of
those conditions, remove the valve core and let it deflate
itself.


Peter Koch: [00:12:58] Yeah and that you said
that's part of the standard when you're [00:13:00] servicing.


Andy Wood: [00:13:00] That is written standard
repeatedly.


Peter Koch: [00:13:02] Yeah, right on. And
something that if you're not if you don't if you've never read
the standard or you're not a professional tire technician, a
service technician, you may not have known it might be something
that you've been taught before by someone that has mentored you
before, but know that that's part of the standard has got to be
part of something that that gets done every time a tire is going
to be deflated and removed from the rim. So deflate it, remove
the valve core for sure. So we've been kind of talking we've
mentioned this term a few times around here, tire, cage, you
know, some shops will have a tire cage, some shops won't have a
tire cage. Some people won't know what a tire cage is. Or some
people will tell you that, yeah, they don't service tires, so
they don't need a tire cage. But you know, like if we think about
our curiosity when we go to the shop and we're not just looking
at the injury stats all the time and talking about some of the
manual material handling. We're [00:14:00] we're looking around
the shop and we're going to ask some questions. And there's been
some pretty interesting answers that I know I've had not about
tires, but and I know you've had about tires and tire cages when
you've gone to talk to some of your service guys. So as we start
talking about tire cages, tell me a little bit about some of the
different shops that you might have worked with and their and
their answers. When you ask them about do they service tires or
do they use a tire cage?


Andy Wood: [00:14:25] Most of these blow out
incidents occur during the reinflation, for whatever reason, with
mismatched or damaged tires or whatever. So there's some specific
guidelines that go along with the reinflation process. And I
think because of the, you know, you should have a tire gauge
that's specified in the OSHA standard. You're going to have three
things. You're going to have a tire cage, you can chain the
tires. But I have never found anyone to chain of tire. You're
supposed to have three chains around the rim and the tire
assembly when it's being inflated. I've never seen anyone do
that. So basically you're going to have a tire cage, [00:15:00]
you're going to have a clip on Chuck with an adequate length of
hose, and you're going to have a pressure regulator in line to
set the pressure for the tire. So a lot of folks will say, you
know, we just we don't bother with tires. And if you think about
it, it's probably not the best use of your mechanic's time to be
changing tires when tire shops are set up just to do that. But
everybody's going to end up in a pinch and they're not going to
have a spare and they're going to need someone to break down a
tire and remount it and repair it right on the spot. So, yeah,
it's interesting. Everyone up front says, you know, no, we don't
do that. But in the reality they do quite a bit of it. And
certainly we've had injuries to prove that I was in one shop and
I asked the guy about the tires, how do you serve as tires? And
he said, you know, no tires in my garage. I don't I tell those
guys I don't want those things are too dangerous for us to deal
with. If they want to do a tire, they have to do it out in the
yard somewhere. I'm not going to have those things in my garage.
So I said, Oh, well, that's good, I guess. [00:16:00] So we
talked. We walked around. Garage. And, you know, he started
opening up a little before we finished. He pointed up to the
ceiling and it was a metal building and it had the metal girders
and it had a metal roof on the inside. And there was a big place
where the girder had been deformed and the roof had a big gash in
it. And he says, You see that up there? He said a skitter tire
went right up. That roof was probably 25 feet off the ground.


Peter Koch: [00:16:24] Wow.


Andy Wood: [00:16:25] And he said someone was
inflating a Skitter tire on the ground. They had it laid right
flat on the floor, on the cement floor, and they had a zipper
rupture on the floor side. Of course, it exhausted right onto the
cement, which is a great place for you to get that.


Peter Koch: [00:16:41] Physics again, right?


Andy Wood: [00:16:42] Yeah. Yeah. Physics to the
thrust from the solid surface. And that tire went right up to the
ceiling. And then he said after that, he said, that's when I made
the rule. No more tires in the garage. So certainly and we've had
a lot of tires and laying the tires on the floor is one that's
got us repeatedly. We [00:17:00] have a colleague that mentioned
that had a person just filling up a passenger car tire and the
tire zipper failed on the on the down side. So the tire was
catapulted into the air and it took him right across the forehead
because he was leaning right over the tire and it fractured his
skull. And then that one again went through to put a hole in the
sheetrock ceiling in that garage. I had another person who was,
again, tire was laying on the floor in the garage and they were
leaning over with a non clip on truck. So you had to stand there
and hold it and it was shot into the air. A zipper failure in the
sidewall shot the and broke both of his forearms. So that's one
we've seen. We've seen again and again. So the standard would be
that first that nobody's in the trajectory. So the trajectory of
the tire is if you have if the tire is standing upright and you
stand with your back right to it, you put your arms out in front
of you and just swing them to a 45 degree on either side. Looking
forward, that would be the trajectory. [00:18:00] So as the rim
goes out, that's where the tire, if there's any explosion, mostly
that's where it's going to go. So there's supposed to be no one
in that trajectory. The tire is supposed to be in a cage. That
clip on Chuck allows you to once you clip it on, to get out of
the trajectory. Otherwise, you have to stand in the trajectory
zone to hold the truck on to reinflate it. So you put the clip
on, Chuck. You've got a hose long enough for you to step back out
of the way and the regulator is on the side. So then you can if
the tire is rated for 80, you can put the regulator up to 80. Or
if the tire is a truck tire, you need 110. You set the regulator
for 110. The shot pressure. This is another problem we've run.
You know, bigger garages are running shop pressures of 150 or 200
psi. If you can't regulate that down to the 80 or 100 or 110 at
the tire, should have you easy, easily overinflated if you're not
right there watching it. So the clip on Chuck gets you out of the
way. The regulator lets you set it for whatever the tire is. So
[00:19:00] that's kind of the standard guideline for doing that.
And they do make smaller tire cages that are portable. And I know
the tire people have those in the field if they have to service
the tire in the field. But you can go on YouTube and you can
Google exploding tires. And it is amazing how much energy. In
fact, I found one that if you have an 11, 11 by 20 tire truck
tire, 14 ply truck tire at 100 psi, if that were to zipper fail
in the sidewall, it can it can lift a £3,000 car 21 feet into the
air. Wow. Okay. So that's a that's a that's a truck. That would
be a small tractor trailer tire. A 20 inch would be a big pickup
tire or a small tractor trailer tire. 3,000 pounds is about the
your average. Yep. 21 feet in the air. That's a lot of that's a
lot of force. It's a lot of energy.


Peter Koch: [00:19:56] A lot of and people don't
think about it like 110 pounds of pressure. That's not [00:20:00]
doesn't seem to be a lot of pressure. But when you think about
the amount of cubic inches of air that it's in, the tire that's
released at 110 pounds all at once, that's a substantial amount
of force. It's not just a little pinprick that 110 pounds is
coming out of it. It's a substantial amount of force, especially
when it is going to be pushed against a solid surface like
asphalt or concrete or the hard ground. So yeah, a lot more force
than we think. I didn't realize 3,000 pounds, 20, 21 feet in the
air. That's crazy.


Andy Wood: [00:20:34] That's a long ways.


Peter Koch: [00:20:36] That's a long ways.


Andy Wood: [00:20:37] That's the family car
skyrocketed it right up to the Ridgeline house.


Peter Koch: [00:20:41] No doubt.  


Peter Koch: [00:20:42] The standard to avoid
those solid surfaces, the standard says that the tire cage cannot
be mounted with a solid surface within one foot of it for just
that reason, to give that air a chance to dissipate a little when
you lay the tire in the ground and it ruptures on the on the
bottom side or into the cement, [00:21:00] that's great for
surface for thrust.


Peter Koch: [00:21:02] Right. And now there's
also some requirements about how you secure that tire cage as
well. Correct.


Andy Wood: [00:21:08] There are holes in the
bottom of the tire cage in the base. And most people thought that
was to be bolted down. So it didn't move across the room because
I had a situation where one the tire cage, the tire blew in the
cage and of course, blew off center and started the tire cage
spinning in a circle. And it went right across the floor of the
garage and people thought it should be secured. Actually, if you
read the directions on most of the tire cages, they're going to
say, do not secure them, because that's one more way that they
dissipate that energy by moving. And the other thing is, if you
bolt that down, unless you had one inch bolts into cement, it's
just going to shear them and become more projectiles. So most of
the tire cages, instructions for installation, you know, no solid
surfaces around it, nothing on it. Don't hang out or anything.
Person's [00:22:00] not supposed to be leaning against it and
don't secure it. Put it in an area where it should be allowed
because it is going to deform substantially if a tire blows up in
it.


Peter Koch: [00:22:09] All right.


Andy Wood: [00:22:09] That's the way it absorbs
the energy by deforming.


Peter Koch: [00:22:12] Yeah. So really it's
there to absorb the energy. It's not going to keep it in one
place, but it's trying to limit the amount of damage that the
tire can do in the open space of the shop.


Andy Wood: [00:22:22] And it's going to minimize
the projectiles that come off of it. Hopefully, the tire will all
stay together.


Peter Koch: [00:22:27] Okay. So let's just think
about those preventative pieces again. So, you know, we started
at the beginning, we talked about the correct personal protective
equipment. So safety glasses hearing protection steel toes, if
you need all that. But then if you're going to reinflate tire
cage appropriately positioned clip on Chuck with an adequate hose
length. So you're not going to be in the way in case it does fail
and then the remote pressure regulator so I can fill it and I
don't have to stand right there. And again, all of those all of
the requirements are [00:23:00] based on injuries and repetitive
injuries that have happened in the past. And you just spoke about
a few of them that have occurred over just the few years that
you've had experience with it. But if you go back in the history
of servicing tires, there's hundreds of thousands of injuries
that have that have occurred, I'm sure, at the reinflation stage
that some of them will probably never even know about if you get
back far enough in the history of automotive.


Peter Koch: [00:23:28] Let's take a quick break.
Insurance is more than premiums and claims. It's also prevention
and consultation to prevent harm from happening in the first
place, to help injured workers get help fast MEMIC policyholders,
have free and unlimited access to 24 seven injury triage and
telehealth specialists. Policyholders can speak directly with a
registered nurse within minutes of an incident which helps reduce
overall medical costs and helps with faster claims processing.
[00:24:00] Importantly, we found that 24 seven injury triage
services can reduce claims for some policyholders by more than
half. To find out more, go to MEMIC.com and then search, triage
or telehealth. Now let's get back to today's episode.


Andy Wood: [00:24:19] Just the stories that I've
been told since I was been aware of the tire hazards. I always
ask the questions in the stories that I hear, you know, that some
did or didn't or didn't generate injuries. That's like, wow,
that's going on way more than we would think out there.


Peter Koch: [00:24:32] Yeah, it definitely is.
Definitely is. And that's one of the pieces, like we said at the
beginning of the podcast, like, you know, hopefully if you've
thought that this has never happened in your shop before, we'll
go back and have some conversations with people who've been there
maybe longer than you have or have been dealing with tires for
quite a long time. And I'll bet you there's at least one story in
the history of your shop or history of your facility where
[00:25:00] something has gone wrong and they've probably made
some changes about how they deal with it to address that
particular historical event. The problem becomes once that person
leaves, or once you get comfortable with the process again, then
you get back to just dealing with it like it truly isn't a hazard
and that tire is almost that sleeping hazard. We don't think
about it as a vessel pressure vessel, but that's really what it
is. You put that much air into anything and there's certainly the
potential for something to explode. And, you know, rubber and
steel are it's not as strong as your as, say, like a steel a
steel pressure vessel that you might have on a railcar or
something like that. There's certainly the potential higher
potential for it to fail. So think about it as a pressure vessel.
Think about it as has the having the potential to truly kill you
or someone around you. [00:26:00] So let's move from there. We've
talked about the frequency of injuries. We've talked about the
severity of injuries and what causes those types of injuries.
Let's talk about some of the injuries that might happen actually
on the road. So you've got some information about wheel failures
on road wheel failures or actually some other challenges that we
might have trying to manage a tire, whether it's still on the
vehicle or the vehicle's actually traveling.


Andy Wood: [00:26:28] Sure. And the injuries and
the liability shifts dramatically when the truck goes back on the
road. If your mechanics or your operators are working on tires,
it's really an injury to them. When the truck goes back on the
road, it's an injury to the motoring public. And not only do you
have to deal with the injuries to other people, but the liability
becomes catastrophic. Managing that when you have one of your
trucks fail, some component of one of your trucks fail on the
highway. And maybe because it wasn't properly serviced, it can
be, and again, just on the very limited [00:27:00] not servicing
the bearings or the axle at all, but just you took a tire off and
you put another one on. So you might have a failure of the wheel,
failure of the tire lug nuts studs or the hub assembly. That's
all. Just by changing the tire that you're exposed to that much.
And one of the common scenarios is what they call a wheel off
event. And that's when one of those failures of any one or
multiple of those components allows it a wheel, or it could be a
dual wheel to separate from the vehicle. If you're lucky, that
wheel goes off the side of the road into the ditch, goes into the
tree somewhere. If you're not so lucky, it could go down the
highway and hit another vehicle or a pedestrian or anything else,
do serious property damage or personal injury or and we had one
of those just recently, about two years ago, we had a kind of a
worst case scenario. We had a wheel off situation. Dual wheels
came off, a log truck [00:28:00] rolled down the side of the
road, hit the guardrail, and then went right down the inside of
the guardrail. And there was a state trooper had stopped a
vehicle, was actually assisting a motor vehicle, and he was
standing between the car and the guardrail. And the tire came
right down the side of the guardrail and struck him, you know,
pretty much a dead hit and killed him. So that's kind of the
worst case scenario. What can happen when you have a wheel off
scenario. The good thing of that is it has stimulated a lot of
awareness and a lot of training and a lot of questions. And in
the state of Maine, at least, we've had a lot of training. In
fact, I've been to a couple of trainings just recently, trainings
just about tires in general and actually trainings about what
exactly happened in that situation. And the interesting thing was
there was no catastrophic failure when the tire came off that
truck. They did an autopsy on the truck, the autopsy on the tire
in the hub. And they actually the whole truck as the commercial
motor vehicle folks would do. And I guess what I call death
[00:29:00] by a thousand cuts, you know, it was just little teeny
things that had been overlooked and clearly had been overlooked
for a while, things that the mechanic should have picked up on,
things that the truck driver should have picked up on doing his
pre trips and his post trips. You know, it wasn't like there was
some major thing that had just failed. It was like all these
little things combined and it just kept getting worse and worse
until finally the wheels came off. And like I said, that was
about as bad as it can get. So a few things that are going to
cause those failures from the trucks on the road. Heat is a
problem. So heat is used in the garage. Sometimes if you have lug
nuts that are frozen on, they're going to use heat to take those
off. Going back to the standard, if you put a torch to a lug nut,
the studs and the lug nuts all have to be changed. Sometimes
you'll take all the lug nuts off and you can't get the hub that
excuse me, you can't get the wheel off the hub because it's
seized on there again. Sometimes you'll take the torch and heat
up the rim to separate it from the hub. You put the torch on the
rim, [00:30:00] it's out of service. That has to be changed. So
heat there is going to be a is going to cause not necessarily a
failure right then, but failure later on when the truck is in
service. If you run a underinflated tire or an overloaded tire,
it's going to generate heat in the tire as well.


Andy Wood: [00:30:16] That will cause the tire
to fail. And what generally happens is the different components,
the bonding of the different components, the different plies in
the casings, the sidewalls, where they're all glued together.
Something will separate at the bonding point when the tire gets
too hot. So heat's a problem that has to be managed anywhere in
the system. And the other thing that's a problem is lubrication.
Some tires go on. It's right in the standards. It's right in the
manufacturer's recommendations. The studs are not lubricated.
They have to be put on dry. And other studs like the hub pilot
had stubs. The there they have to piece knots, they have to be
lubricated and the stud has to have a lubrication as well in
order to create enough clamping force to hold [00:31:00] the tire
on. So it's. Very specific on how that lubrication works. Some
are lubricated and some are lubricated. Same thing when you're
servicing the tire. If you're mounting and dismounting tires on
rim, you need to lubricate the bead. In this case, they're always
lubricated. If you don't use lubrication or you don't use the
right lubrication, you're going to damage the bead. And that's
not going to be noticeable until you fully inflate the tire and
then maybe have it loaded. It's traveling at a high rate of speed
which generates heat anyways, or it's heavily loaded, which
generates heats. So those are going to be failures that maybe not
be noticed until the vehicle is back on the road.


Peter Koch: [00:31:38] Early, early on in my
career, having worked in some older garages for different
vehicles and some old school mechanics, watching them actually
trying to manage frozen on lug nuts for some vehicles. Seen them
used torches before and had never I hadn't realized that that was
part of the standard that you can't use heat to do that. So if
heat's [00:32:00] not to be used to remove the lug nut, then what
are some options that you have out there?


Andy Wood: [00:32:06] Well, it's interesting.
After the wheel off incident, the fatal wheel off incident in
Maine, our local trucking organization did a training and they
had a guy from the TIA certified to do tire training and they had
the officers who did the accident investigation, not talking
about the injury, but just talking about tires in general. How
many guys use a torch to heat up the lug nuts? And the room was
full of mechanics and truck drivers and they all put up their
hand and the guy said, you realize, you know, when you do that,
that lug nut and that nut is out of service and everyone no,
never heard of that before. So yeah, there's a lot of people that
wouldn't have been aware of that. They did talk about several
interesting tools that make your job a little bit easier and you
don't damage so much equipment. One was the nut buddy, which was
kind of an interesting unit. It's got a ratchet on one end and
you slide it over the lug nut. It's got a brace that comes out
and leans against the next lug nut. So it's stationary and you
put a [00:33:00] handle on the end and you just turn it. It works
kind of like a planetary gear. Folks know how that works, and it
just creates a gear ratio of 58 to 1. So just with a small
handle, you can apply incredible amounts of force to back that
off there. And you don't you don't ruin any equipment in the
process.


Peter Koch: [00:33:16] So I thought you were
going to say. I thought you were going to say, are you going to
use a longer cheater bar on your ratchet arm?


Andy Wood: [00:33:22] Yeah, I know.


Peter Koch: [00:33:23] I'm glad I'm glad there's
a better solution than that.


Andy Wood: [00:33:25] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That
was one option that worked really well.


Peter Koch: [00:33:31] Also, we were talking
before, too, there are some things that you can do to prevent
some of this stuff, or at least identify if there's any
particular problems before you put the vehicle back on the road.
And I think there's a an acronym for that, which is RIST correct
RIST. So what does that stand for and how would you use that?


Andy Wood: [00:33:51] Yeah, a very simple
process that came out of the training and is in the manuals as
well. RIST, R I S T. The first one is [00:34:00] remove all
debris. I inspect all components S snug nuts in a star pattern
and t talk to manufacturers recommendations. So one of the
biggest problems with going back to I remove all debris that's
there's going to be some rust on the hub or on the on the wheel.
And if you put that back together with rust in there, it doesn't
allow the lug nuts to create enough clamping force to hold the
tire in place. So a lot of folks think that the lug nuts, the
studs hold the tire in place, but the studs and the lug nuts only
create clamping force. And what holds it on there is the clamping
force against the hub. So if you if there's any rust or any
debris in there, you can't get that clamping force. So cleaning
that meeting surface is really important. The inside of the rim
and the outside of the hub inspecting all components. I'll
mention something in a second. The five and one gauge. It's
important, as I mentioned, with inspecting the rim flanges to
make sure they are worn, particularly [00:35:00] in the aluminum
rims. But all the components need to be inspected. The nuts need
to be inspected. The studs, the holes, are they are they starting
to wear wobble a little wear open up a little bit. That's all
going to be inspected in the process and a tool that they had.
There was the five and one inspection tool and that would check
the studs for diameter. So if the studs have been worn from just
from age or if they've been stretched at all, they're going to
change in diameter. This tool, it's just a little tool that fits
in the palm of your hand. It's just a piece of metal that's
drilled out in different diameters to check the diameter of the
studs, to check the diameter of the nuts if they're starting to
wobble on both sides, elongation of the holes in the rim and the
diameters of the holes in the rim. So for one easy tool, it can
check five different components and you know, you're good to go
to put that stuff back together. At least that stuff is going to
be very quickly within standards and it's stuff that you can't
tell by looking at it. It's nothing [00:36:00] you're going to be
able to tell. But this little piece of metal has got index marks
on it. If you slide it in and it goes to that point, it's out of
service. It's pretty, pretty simple to use. And it solves a lot
of the a lot of the problems. So remove all debris, inspect the
components, snug nuts in a star pattern. That's just a question
of, you know, we all heard that I think driver's ed, we learned
that in high school. You know, you work your way around the rim
in a certain pattern depending on how many lug nuts you have to
make sure that the stress on the rim is being distributed evenly
and that it's not getting distorted or warped at all. When you
tighten one side all the way down and then go to the other side,
sometimes it'll get bowed. So you do that evenly. And then the
last one is the torque. And of course a lot of your places are
going to use a wrench. They're going to use a air impact or
impact wrench to put it back on. And the common thinking is that
more is better in this case. More is not better. It's going to
distort the wheels and it's going to stretch the studs. And if
you stretch the studs, the lugs, the nuts after that won't stay
tight in [00:37:00] the standard that says you need to use a
torque wrench. Once you snug up the star pattern, you're going to
go round with a torque wrench and set the nuts, the lug nuts to
the torque that's recommended for that application.


Andy Wood: [00:37:10] You can't just wind it up.
You can't just put the long cheater bar on there. You know, I
made a tool when I first started in the woods. I made a tool that
I could just designed for changing the lug nuts on a skitter. And
I thought I was pretty smart. I had a custom made and you can put
a big long bar on in that and I could snap lug nuts off like
nobody. And I thought, Jeez, you think it would just tighten down
and stop, but you get enough leverage and you can break those
right off. Of course, just before they break off, you've deformed
them to the point where they're not going to hold and you might
not know that. So the torque wrench and there's different styles
of torque wrenches that can be used by the torque wrench is
supposed to be used to tension those lug nuts back on there. And
interesting. I don't know how many people have ever calibrated
their torque wrench. Most people buy them and just use them, but
they need to be calibrated, occasionally [00:38:00] recalibrated,
I should say, to make sure they're still within the specs.


Peter Koch: [00:38:04] Yeah, those are all good
points and I think there's quite a few people, if they've ever
changed their own tires that have probably used a cheater bar,
probably not have used a torque wrench to do that. So they can,
they can probably sympathize with you and, and think about some
of those potentials. And, and you think about it, if you're
running an aluminum rim and you are driving that that lug nut
onto that stud as hard as you can and refund on it, that aluminum
is brittle, it's going to break. And even if you're running just
a steel rim, it's going to potentially deform. And then once you
start loosening that wheel on the hub, you're going to start
having problems around the rest of the components that are
holding that tire or the wheel onto the car. So it really just
starts the cascade of effects that could cause catastrophic
problems later on down the road and possibly turn [00:39:00] into
a tragic situation that you referred to there where the trooper
got killed in Maine here. And I did. I ended up Googling while we
were talking just a wheel off fatalities. And there's a number of
fatalities that have occurred both in the United States and in
Canada, where a wheel has come off from poor maintenance or from
a component failure, and it's killed either someone in a car
because it's hit the car and the car went off the road or it
killed a pedestrian or someone who is on the side of the road.


Peter Koch: [00:39:33] So definitely something I
never thought about until we started having this conversation.
But it's definitely out there and the things like I've said it
numerous times outside of this podcast, the tires are the thing
that makes your vehicle perform. It's just like having good shoes
on your feet. You can't get good traction if you don't have good
tread and you can't have good balance if you don't have good
support in in those shoes and the same thing on your [00:40:00]
on your car. The treads got to be good. The tires got to be well
maintained and the serviceable condition and it has to be affixed
properly, correctly and securely to the vehicle in order for it
all to work. And then it's got to be the right tire for the right
application. Your shoe might do everything that you want it to
do, except when you want to try to play a sport with it, you're
going to end up having some sort of failure. The same thing is
going to happen with a tire that might not be designed for the
load that you're trying to carry or the speeds that you're trying
to travel. So we're gosh, I can't believe it. We've been here now
for quite a while. We're right towards the end of our podcast
here. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that I should
have asked you, Andy, that you want to talk a little bit more
around tire safety?


Andy Wood: [00:40:46] Yeah, I think we've
covered a lot. We've covered a lot of ground. Again, we're just
trying to peak people's interest to maybe look a little further.
I think for me, I had certainly been around heavy equipment,
tires, been around trucks, and certainly [00:41:00] I have. I
think I have the record in my at least in my family, five flat
tires in one week. When I worked in the woods, you know, the
gravel roads were just really tough on tires. So I spent a lot of
time changing tires on equipment and on my pickups. It wasn't
until just recently I went to some of this tire training and it
was so simple and it makes so much sense. And yet it's nothing
you're going to think of on your own until someone sits you down
and says, This is the way this works. And you're thinking, Oh my
gosh, I've done that all my life. I never realized that that's
actually the way that's the way it works and that's the way it
should be repaired. And so with relatively little effort, you can
make yourself a much better technician as far as servicing, even
if you're just doing occasional. And even when I change the tires
on my pickup now I have a little different procedure and a little
different process. So I would encourage folks to reach out there
and look at some of the training that's available and get
yourself or your mechanics or your technicians, or even if it's
just operators [00:42:00] changing their own tires, get them to
it as well.


Peter Koch: [00:42:02] I think that's a great
point. And so if I were to start looking for more information
about servicing tires or maybe to try to get some of that
training, where could I look? What are where? Some places that
our listeners can find more information about surfacing tires or
maybe find some of that training that you're talking about.


Andy Wood: [00:42:20] Yeah. So the certainly the
OSHA spells out what has to be in some of the training. But as
far as getting the training, the TIA the Tire Industry
Association, I would say that's the biggest trade group and they
have the most training and it looks to me like it's pretty good.
They have certified instructors that will go around to different
parts of the country. Or you can go to, I think in the Midwest
somewhere they are you can go to their facility and take the tire
training, you know, and some of it's a combination of classroom
training and hands on, you go to the tire shop, you have to do
everything that you've talked about. The US Tire Manufacturers
Association is another big group. So I would say those two would
be places I'd start to get actual training by [00:43:00] myself.


Peter Koch: [00:43:01] Nice. And we'll, we'll
put those links and some other links in the show notes for the
podcast. So if you're listening out there and you do want to find
more information, you can go to either of those two
organizations, Google those organizations, or you can check out
the show notes in the podcast and you can head out there and see
what's available for you. So, Andy, thank you very much for
joining us today and for sharing your expertise or really, truly
appreciate having this conversation with you.


Andy Wood: [00:43:28] Sure, Pete. Thanks for the
opportunity. And like I said in the beginning, when you start
looking at these things and you kind of recount all the different
situations you've been in, you realize, wow, there's a lot more
things. I never really put all the dots together and think
there's a lot more exposures than I thought I had out there.


Peter Koch: [00:43:43] Yeah, for sure. I know
one of the things that I'm going to just take away personally,
like just managing my own personal fleet of vehicles, whether it
be lawnmower or tractor or the cars that personally drive. And
one of the things that I'm going to do is clip on Chuck and not
stand anywhere [00:44:00] next to that tire when I'm inflating
it. Because no matter how good I'm going to be at looking at it,
I might not notice that something's going to fail. So that's one
of the things that I can do personally that might keep me a
little bit safer. And I'm certainly going to impart that
information to my teenage drivers for sure. Thanks again to
everyone for joining us today. This is part two of our two part
podcast on Tire Safety with Andy Wood, Manager of our Forest
Products Safety Services. Here at MEMIC, check out part one.