Rockmountainatv sells some lever thing that sells for about 30 bucks...but how often would you need it?

 

I used a tire changer my brother had bought from Harbor Freight.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=34542

It works reallywell. He mounted it on a pallet so he was standing on the pallet while working on the tire. That helps keep it from moving around. One thing he found helped when breaking a difficult bead was to keep a little air pressure in the tire while breaking the bead.

 

i break the beads with my logsplitter

 

why would you go to all that trouble most tire stores around here will mount and dismount tires for 5 to 10 dollars each

 

That's a way I've never heard before[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] Might have to try that sometime[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Around here, it's $20 a tire[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] Wal Mart doesn't touch them[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] along with tire shops.

I've learned to just buy new wheels with the tires.

 

Northerntool.com has a whole page of tools in there new catalog for changing all kinds of tires

 

Hey I'm a tire tech at a auto shop where I live and I can tell you for the money you would spend to have your tires beads cleaned you might as well just go ahead and have a shop do it for you I know I wouldnt want to have to break a bead without the machine I use at work.

And squeege all enviromental issues aside burning the tires off isnt a great idea cause you still have the steel belts in the bead of the tire which can be a real pain to get off if they arnt attached to the whole rest of the tire. Trust me i know I spent and hour working on a rim some one tired that on and still didnt get it off.
One tire should take about 10 min at max to break down clean and mount new tire. plus after I was done fighting the thing I hade a huge mess to clean from all the soot that came from this half burned off tire.

If you really want to do a tire at home and you have some sort of plow or a Bobcat with a bucket try propping the tire up against a wall or some thing that can with stand the force of being push on and aim your plow/bucket for just below the edge of the rim then you basicly have a homemade machine like the one I use daily at work except our blade presses on the side insted of the bottom or top of the tire

Thats my 2 cents

Oh p.s. If you clean your bead and it still wants to leak try bead sealer its basicly a liquid rubber that you brush onto the rim.

 

How weird is that. I just came up from my workshop, where I used some scrap steel to make my own super-leverage bead breaker. You can get a used production model (almost as sweet as mine) for 50 bucks on ebay if you wait around for a deal.

 

I've been using that little 185 a lot lately. Used it a few times tonight for yard work, ran down the road a few times, went to the neighbor's, etc. It gets a ton of use, and hopefully, my '84 KLR250 dirt bike will be going in a couple of weeks.