Mechanic Decor: Wheels and Tires as End Tables

When I discovered that the wheels and tires on my Mazda Miata were bent (according to the shop, "bent all to hell"), I also happened to have very little furniture. Conveniently enough, the tires on those wheels were also almost completely worn out. There was no value left in a set of bent wheels with worn tires.

So I looked on Craigslist for glass discs to use as a tabletop. I found someone selling them for $5 apiece. I bought two, stacked the tires two high, and made night stands for our bedroom. My fiancee approves.

Not long after, I found one of my racer friends had a lot of tires left over from a team he worked with. He worked as a mechanic for one of the teams running the Grand-Am Continental Tire series. That team ran the Rolex 24 At Daytona race, which necessarily means a lot of worn-out racing slicks. He hooked me up with four of them for free. He had been keeping them in the hopes of selling them as take-offs that could still be used for shorter events by other racers, but had no takers, so the 20-some tires in his possession were just taking up space at his house.

If you put a set of string lights inside the tires, it'll glow from the inside.

Dorifto!

Winter feels like it'll be over soon, so I get her sideways at every possible (safe) opportunity. That's made easier by the fact that my snow tires are pretty much finished. I'm getting new, cheap all-season tires for daily duty this weekend; I'll survive any forthcoming snow, and get some fresh winter tires next season.

Clogged catalyst

So, my catalytic converter clogged. It was a strange experience. On my drive home, I noticed the car made less power above 4k RPM, and started sounding like a trumpet. Yes, a trumpet. As my commute wore on, it got progressively worse -- to the point where I could barely maintain 80mph (welcome to Chicago tollway speeds). I put my headlights up and my speed dropped. That's how on-the-limit I was with regard to available power.

I should note that the cat had been making a rattling noise for several weeks before this happened. When this happened, the noise stopped.

So I went straight to my dad's place, jacked up the car and dropped the exhaust. Sure enough, the chunks of catalyst remaining in there had rolled into the back of the cat and got lodged in the pipe. We broke it up and got it out.

This is the stuff.

(Never mind the Taz floor mat, we use it on the garage floor.)

Yeah, I figured there would be a lot more, but no. Apparently most of it had already blown out.

So, my car no longer sounds like a trumpet, it has all its power, and a nonfunctioning catalytic converter. I'm technically no longer STS-legal, but I'll worry about that if I ever go to nationals. In the mean time, I don't care.

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On a side note, I picked up a set of tires on 13" Ford Escort steelies today, 175/70-13. (Yes, the 13" do fit over the calipers, though barely). Two are practically new, the other two have somewhat more than half life. Different brands for each pair, but it'll serve. And where else can you get a set of wheels and tires, mounted and balanced for $40? I got a new scissor jack out of the deal too, one from a Saturn. Heavier duty than mine, and it came with a handle. Mine did not have a handle, which made jacking a pain in the ass.

Yes. Jacking.