(Syclone at Uncle Dick’s funeral in 2002. The restoration and tires were new then. Photo Socotra)

I want to thank Marty McFly and Doc Brown for the automotive theme for the week. I was busy getting ready all day yesterday for the celebration this afternoon. “Back to the Future” Day has finally arrived. It has been a long time coming, longer even than the year the Syclone Super Truck was manufactured in 1991.

In “Back to the Future Part II,” Marty McFly travels to October 21, 2015, to save his children, yet to be born in “Back to the Future’s” 1985.

The plot gets sort of tangled up from there, and I won’t attempt to unscramble the paradoxes caused by temporal displacement resulting from the flux capacitor bolted onto the Delorean sports car. Suffice it to say, by fixing one thing, McFly and Doc Brown create a number of new issues- which is exactly what happened with the Syclone muscle truck.

Back to the Future was still in theatrical release when the truck was bolted together, so it is appropriate I am going to drive it today.

Syclone was a sort of vanity project on the part of the performance mafia at General Motors. They had the Sonoma sheet metal bolted to the all-wheel drive chassis powered by the 4.3 Liter Turbo-charged engine and built about two thousand of them- a pittance in terms of the gigantic production runs of the Camaros and Firebirds. In 1967 alone, more than 220,000 Camaros rolled off the assembly line. But the scheme was that they would have these little black trucks running around Detroit that ate Mustangs for breakfast.

Which is how Uncle Dick got his, and retired with it to the Poconos, where he used it to take loads to the dump at extremely high speed. When he passed, it had less than 30K on the odometer, though it came to me as a project car. I got the fenders replaced- Sonoma parts, as opposed to the engine and drive train- are cheap. So is paint. The stainless-steel exhaust was not.

The tires were definitely not inexpensive. Firestone produced a low-profile Indy rack competition tire for the custom wheels that made the truck stand out. The Firehawk rubber came in P245/50ZR16, and I have had an (almost) crash course in tire ratings and technology over the last couple days.

The numbers tell you all you need to know. “P” means it is a passenger car (or light truck) tire, with the next three digits referring to the “nominal section width” of the tire in millimeters. The slash is just for character separation; the “50” refers to the “aspect ratio” of the sidewall height, as a percentage of the total width of the tire.

Then things get interesting. The letter code refers to the speed rating of the tire- that is, at what speed the whole thing disintegrates. When Z-rated tires (the “R” means radial) were first introduced, they were thought to reflect the highest tire speed rating that would ever be required, in excess of 240 km/h or 149 mph. While Z-speed rated tires are capable of speeds in excess of 149 mph, how far above 149 mph was not identified. That ultimately caused the automotive industry to add W- and Y-speed ratings to identify the tires that meet the needs of new vehicles that have extremely high top-speed capabilities. But I am confident that even the Syclone is not going to need those.

There is something else- maybe the only thing you need to take away from this: tires are only good for six years, regardless of how much tread depth there is remaining. Some makers (like Michelin) will argue their rubber can be good for ten, but I am not going to trust them. I last replaced the tires on the truck when I did the restoration in 2002- which is to say that I was three years over the absolute maximum any tire can be expected to last, and more than twice the recommended mean mission endurance, if I can be permitted the NASA analogy.

How this all came to pass is a function of one of the other chores- fixing the outlets in the garage that powered the trickle-chargers to keep the batteries primed on the truck and the Explorer that has been visiting the farm for the last two years. With the power out, both were deader than door-nails, and replacing the batteries jumped to the top of the list of chores.

I was proceeding on a methodical course. I swapped out the dead batteries on both two weeks ago, and washed both vehicles at the coin wash in town. Both worked in a satisfactory manner. The next weekend I was in Michigan, then last Sunday I came down and goofed off, intending to take Syclone to the mechanic on Monday and have all the fluids, belts and hoses replaced.

As soon as I backed the truck out of the garage I knew that was not going to happen. The front right tire was flatter than a pancake. The three other tires had cracks and chasms that went down to below the tread.

(If your ties have rot like this, you might want to consider extremely low-speed operations, Z-rated or not).

Screwed. And the spare, the thing suspended on the rack under the bed in the rear, had not bee looked at since- well, since Back to the Future was new.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

Two approaches, naturally. I could find the custom tires and have them delivered to a tire shop. Then remove the tire from the wheel, blocking the axle, then drive another car and have the tire mounted, then return to the farm and re-mount the tire and hope that one of more of the other three ancient tires didn’t blow on the road going to have them replaced.

Or just call someone and have the truck trucked.

Bingo. It was actually kind of slick. I found four correct tires in a warehouse in Delaware. I found the closest local tire guy with a decent Facebook page and a lot of likes. I bought the tires and had them shipped to the tire guy. I contacted the local towing company and made an appointment to have the truck picked up on a flatbed. Then I visited the tire guy and had the oil changed in the Explorer, an action item that was completed out-of-phase but still complete. And then I had a couple drinks and watched Fox news to get my heart beating again.

Believe it or not, the tires migrated from Delaware to Culpeper in less than 24 hours. The tow truck was available early. Only one bolt needed to be drilled out. Chris at Culpeper Tire and Auto is an honest guy and fun to spend the afternoon with. His prices are local and his work seems good.

Me and the truck were home in time for cocktail hour. The action items are falling, one by one. Next week we get to the mechanics. And I need to get down and start the Rambler, and get it back to our future. And check the tires. Shoot, the spare could be from 1959!

(Preparing to truck the truck. Justin from D&B Towing was most helpful. Photo Socotra).

Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303