Mounting Tires via DIY?

[festyfreak39]

this is going to probably come off the wrong way:

why not just buy a tire machine and balancer? im into my stuff for less than 1100$ and ive paid it off doing stuff on the side during winter seasons. I've made money on it and i've had it less then a year.

even go half'sees with a friend or buddy makes things really affordable.

[nitrofarm]

Suprisingly I seem to do do better with skid loader tires rather than a simple 14" passenger car tire.

How long it take to mount a tire by hand depends on your skill, some can do it in a few minuts others take hours. I find it is all in the placement of the bars.

Have you ever done the "Galaxy" King Kong 12 ply? Those can be a dirty word. But not as bad as doing fire truck tires. Those have got to be some of the worst. We would go soak the bead area a day before with PB Blaster just to try to loosen the rust.

[RENESISFD]

We used to have contest's to see who could dismount & mount semi tires the fastest by hand. To break the bead you stand on the tire & hit the tire @ the bead on the opposite side of the wheel with a large bladed sledge. Sometimes we would get orders for 100+ semi trailer tires etc. We would do them all by hand(way faster than any machine). And yes you can do aluminum rims by hand. You just have to be more careful. I saw a co-worker DESTROY some corvette wheels with a state of the art tire machine also. We ended up spending $750 to have them refurbished. Also saw a co worker do a car (Steel) tire in under 60 seconds. When you do something all day long its like picking your nose. So everything is relative and the outcome is based on skill & experience. Also saw a co worker air up a two piece fork lift tire that he forgot to torque the bolts. When it blew (he didn't have it in a cage) the wheel bounced off the ceiling & hit a semi in the shop. And one of the bolts hit the co worker directly in the forehead. He was lucky cuz the only thing hurt was his pride(we kept razing him about the perfect outline of the bolt head on his forehead! So to answer the Original post,yes you can do them by hand. But you really should get some tire spoons & watch someone do it so you know what to do. Skid loader tires now those can be FUN!

Suprisingly I seem to do do better with skid loader tires rather than a simple 14" passenger car tire.

How long it take to mount a tire by hand depends on your skill, some can do it in a few minuts others take hours. I find it is all in the placement of the bars.

[htchbck]

Just had to pull and patch one of those today at work! I've got a Coats 5035 here that just barely fits it. Its great fun getting it to bead back up, I usually just put a 10,000lb ratchet strap around it till it pinches the middle in and pushes the sides out enough Gotta take the strap off though before you fully air up the tire, I'd hate to see one of those go flying!

[nitrofarm]

We used to have contest's to see who could dismount & mount semi tires the fastest by hand. To break the bead you stand on the tire & hit the tire @ the bead on the opposite side of the wheel with a large bladed sledge. Sometimes we would get orders for 100+ semi trailer tires etc. We would do them all by hand(way faster than any machine). And yes you can do aluminum rims by hand. You just have to be more careful. I saw a co-worker DESTROY some corvette wheels with a state of the art tire machine also. We ended up spending $750 to have them refurbished. Also saw a co worker do a car (Steel) tire in under 60 seconds. When you do something all day long its like picking your nose. So everything is relative and the outcome is based on skill & experience. Also saw a co worker air up a two piece fork lift tire that he forgot to torque the bolts. When it blew (he didn't have it in a cage) the wheel bounced off the ceiling & hit a semi in the shop. And one of the bolts hit the co worker directly in the forehead. He was lucky cuz the only thing hurt was his pride(we kept razing him about the perfect outline of the bolt head on his forehead! So to answer the Original post,yes you can do them by hand. But you really should get some tire spoons & watch someone do it so you know what to do. Skid loader tires now those can be FUN!

[htchbck]

Karl, I have pretty much the same one you do, and I've never had any trouble out of 14"/15"/16" steelies. I think if you were needing to do stuff bigger than 13s you would probably want to go with a larger platform for it, which you can actually stand on while working to keep it stable. My pallet has worked great, though its probably about time to replace it now after 5 years .

[Safety Guy]

Econoaddict wrote:

"I paid for both in less than 6 months balancing tires for friends and neighbors at 1/2 of what tire shops charge.
I took a 5 gallon bucket and a pair of weight pliers to the local wreckers and spent about 1/2 a day collecting wheel weights, paid $20 for a bucket full of weights."

Smart!

If I ever find a better semi-auto tire changer used, I'll buy it once I have somewhere to put it!

I forgot to mention I bought and tried the HF bubble balancer, but couldn't ever figure out how to use it, or if it was defective or not. Just didn't work for me. I should put it up for sale. Maybe someone else could get it to work.

Karl

[econoaddict]

I got tired of paying the tire shops myself.
Around here it is $80-$130 to mount and balance 4 wheels/tires, crazy.
I started watching auctions and estate sales, I purchased an older style euro tire machine for $300 at an estate sale and picked up a brand new Ranger electronic spin balancer for $1800, this one: http://www.amazon.com/Ranger-Wheel-B.../dp/B004HL02TM . I paid for both in less than 6 months balancing tires for friends and neighbors at 1/2 of what tire shops charge.
I took a 5 gallon bucket and a pair of weight pliers to the local wreckers and spent about 1/2 a day collecting wheel weights, paid $20 for a bucket full of weights.

[Movin]

Stiff side walls and wide rims..getting the tire back on the rim will need some trick if you are doing it by hand.

[Safety Guy]

I bought the Harbor Freight tire changer about two years ago. It quickly paid for itself within a season. I was able to take off a bunch of 12" tires from Festiva steel and alloy rims, as well as some 13" tires from other steel and alloy rims. I did have some problems with 14" tires and trying to put on new tires. It does take some practice to get the technique down. There are some Youtube videos to watch on this which may help a bit.

For awhile, I was getting tires mounted and balanced at a local Walmart for less than $12 each, but the last time I went, they charged me around $21 a piece. For some reason they had not been used to doing tires and wheels off the car. They finally must have changed their minds and began charging me more.

If you expect to mount new tires, especially over 13" in size, you may find it difficult or impossible. Same with removing some larger size tires. But with 12" and most used 13" tires, you can usually get them off or onto the rims once you learn how and get some practice. I've also removed a few 14" tires too.

If you were buying it solely for 14" tires and up, especially to mount new ones, you may be unable to take advantage of the manual machine. But I found it to save me lots of money, I'm very glad to have bought it, and it will continue to save me money into the future!

I also invested in some good tire lube and some professional tire tools to install valve stems and help change tires and fill them with air. Here's a picture from about two years ago:



Karl

[htchbck]

One of the best $50 I ever spent:

http://www.tractorsupply.com/larin-manual-tire-changer-1000142

Its $54.99 now, but if you're paying up to twenty buck to mount a tire, it will more than pay for itself the first set you do. Harbor freight, tractor supply, Northern Tool, places like that all have these. I mounted mine to a 40"x48" pallet so I can keep it out of the way in the corner and drag it out when I need it, or throw it in the back of the van if I need to do tires somewhere else. They are great for steelies, but can't be used on alloys. There are some manual ones out there that will work without damaging alloys, but they are harder to find and usually cost over $250. I've done everything from 8" golf cart tires to 235/85R16s from a F250 super duty on mine. Only problem I've ever had was spade for the bead breaker bent once when I was trying to break down one of my trailer tires, but I beat it back into shape with my sledge and its worked great ever since. I've had it about 5 years and done literally hundreds of tires with it.

[bhazard]

Re: Mounting Tires via DIY?

Its just one of those things our generation can't do that our parents or grandparents can do effortlessly...

[zoom zoom]

Haha, I was thinking the same thing a couple years ago. After removing and installing two tires it was more than 6 hours later and I was worn out. Worth every penny of the 12$ my local shop charges to mount and balance. A little ether goes a long way.

[bhazard]

Re: Mounting Tires via DIY?

My dad mounted (hammered...lol) my 195/65-15 snow tires on steelies in less than an hour.

That's a ridiculous price by the way. Last time I had Walmart mount four it was like $5 each. That's Walmart though...

[blkfordsedan]

Yes, it can be done, but it's not fun. We used to change an occasional tire by hand in the pits between races. That was a 15" 60 series tire. I imagine a 45 series would really be a chore. You can buy simple tire machines and special tire tools as well.