Repairing a puncture is never fun but the days before demountables made it even less so. One thing in the photo that caught my attention is the rather long stroke of the pump. I’m supposing the longer stroke required fewer pumps to air the tire back up, all the time praying the innertube didn’t get pinched in reassembly and whatever caused the flat tire in the first place has been removed. For the experience on a fall afternoon in the shade and shelter of our garage I once aired up a tire on our ’27 coupé riding on 21 inch, 35 pounds of pressure Firestones. It wasn’t fun and my goal was well less than the 55 psi the earlier T Model tires called for. Studying early pictures such as this only increases my admiration for the early autoists. Then again I’ll not forget something my late mother in law, she a T Model driver of old, once told me “It was better than walking or riding in a jolt wagon.”
I’ll venture a guess the T is a non-starter equipped pre-1919 machine. Any thoughts ?
