Tire Stand and Bead Breaking

[rwortman]

I use a Harbor Freight bead breaker that I padded with some old garden hose. I use a dirt bike tire changing stand, also with extra padding using split and tywrapped garden hose. I have probably changed 16 tires with it so far. Works better than wresting the wheel around and using 2 x 4's to break the beads.

https://www.amazon.com/Pit-Posse-Motorcycle-Changing-Portable/dp/B004MC43CI

 

[NBB]

Ask tripper for pictures of his at home setup, it works very well for a bead breaker.

 

[FJR Flyer]

I used a Motion Pro bead breaker on both bike and car tires. Works fairly easily. I think it was under $20.

 

[Harald]

There's lots of ideas on the 'net for homemade tire changers. I scrounged parts (old car wheel, old garden hose, metal pieces and hardware) and made a setup for less than $20:

I then splurged and bought the NoScuff tire tool to make it easier to pop tires on and off, but this isn't necessary because I managed with spoons forever. BTW, my tire balancer was made with all scrounged parts:

Frame is scrap lumber and there's bearings attached to metal plates to allow the bike's own axle to rest on and spin freely. Works like a charm!

 

[Fred W]

Here's my original setup:

The centerpiece for the system was dubbed as the "Yankee Frugal Tire Facilitator" by Professor ionbeam when we used it on his wheels. It's just a 14" steel car rim with a couple of plywood pieces to bolt a center threaded rod in it. A piece of hose split and jammed over the edge of the rim keeps from scuffing up the bike wheels.

note that I cut the old tire off and left the sidewall for something to step on for leverage.

Bead breaker is a couple of pieces of 2x3 bolted together to pivot. I originally levered against my trailer hitch on the back of the SUV, but later mounted a wood block to the wall as shown so it didn't "give" when really prying on a bead.

A couple of motion pro tire irons, and a few pieces of cut up windshield washer fluid bottles for protection for dismounting and mounting the tahrs. Note that I made a nifty little disk rotor protector for the top disk.

I didn't have it back then, but if you want to do tires by yourslef, consider buying one of the NoMar's Yellow thing tools. It holds the edge of the tire from slipping as you work your way around the tire. Well worth the price.

After mounting the new skin, it's time to balance it up. I bought a balancer (like a Mark Parnes) on eBay for less than a hundo. Two stools for the "stand" and it's quick and easy to balance them up. Here's a picture of checking the bare wheel for balance, which is nice to know if you have tires with balance dot marks on them (like Bridgestones do, and Michelins do not)