Today I expanded my tire mounting skills by mounting tires on 17” alloy minivan wheels. I used the same machine I use for motorcycle wheels (modified Harbor Freight tire changer), so as not scratch the rims. My findings are that car tires, at least higher profile ones, are super easy to mount.
Slightly more difficult are trailer tires. The job is the same as a car tire, with the added challenge of seating the bead of a tire shipped from overseas squished flat as a pancake stacked. I had to get a bead blaster air tank. It empties a five gallon 100 psi air tank in a couple seconds to inflate the tire. Even after seeing videos, I still had no faith that the bead blaster would work to inflate the tire and pop the beads on the rims, but by golly it did.
Next up in increasing difficulty is your average motorcycle tire on a 17-19 inch rim. These go on pretty easy, but you have to fiddle more with getting the opposite side bead down in the well so you can lever the tire on to the rim.
Next higher difficulty is scooter tires on 10-12 inch rims. Those little guys are tough to mount, and sometimes I just need to resort to kneeling on them and fighting them with tire levers because the rims are too small to mount on the tire machine. I changed a 10 inch Ruckus tire last week and it was a challenge.
The ultimate tire change difficulty is the Goldwing 1800 front rim, with the rear wheel coming in a close second. The tires are stiff because of the load they carry. Mounting the Goldwing tire is about muscle, but not entirely about muscle. It’s more like a strategy game to see where you need to add lube and where you need to add tools and blocks to push the stiff opposite bead down to the center of the well. You solve the puzzle, and only then does the tire go on the rim.
If you can master a Goldwing front tire change, you can change about any tire. Could I pay someone else to mount my tires? Sure. But I save a few bucks, and I enjoy the satisfaction of doing it myself. I get to buy discounted tires on line. My wheels don’t get all torn up from careless people handling them, and with motorcycle tires, it takes less time to do it myself than driving to town to get it done at the motorcycle shop.
Slightly more difficult are trailer tires. The job is the same as a car tire, with the added challenge of seating the bead of a tire shipped from overseas squished flat as a pancake stacked. I had to get a bead blaster air tank. It empties a five gallon 100 psi air tank in a couple seconds to inflate the tire. Even after seeing videos, I still had no faith that the bead blaster would work to inflate the tire and pop the beads on the rims, but by golly it did.
Next up in increasing difficulty is your average motorcycle tire on a 17-19 inch rim. These go on pretty easy, but you have to fiddle more with getting the opposite side bead down in the well so you can lever the tire on to the rim.
Next higher difficulty is scooter tires on 10-12 inch rims. Those little guys are tough to mount, and sometimes I just need to resort to kneeling on them and fighting them with tire levers because the rims are too small to mount on the tire machine. I changed a 10 inch Ruckus tire last week and it was a challenge.
The ultimate tire change difficulty is the Goldwing 1800 front rim, with the rear wheel coming in a close second. The tires are stiff because of the load they carry. Mounting the Goldwing tire is about muscle, but not entirely about muscle. It’s more like a strategy game to see where you need to add lube and where you need to add tools and blocks to push the stiff opposite bead down to the center of the well. You solve the puzzle, and only then does the tire go on the rim.
If you can master a Goldwing front tire change, you can change about any tire. Could I pay someone else to mount my tires? Sure. But I save a few bucks, and I enjoy the satisfaction of doing it myself. I get to buy discounted tires on line. My wheels don’t get all torn up from careless people handling them, and with motorcycle tires, it takes less time to do it myself than driving to town to get it done at the motorcycle shop.
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