mounting & dismounting your own tractor tires

[dfkrug]

That pitiful puny little four-legged "spider" center hold-down gizmo leaves a lot to be desired and probably is to blame for any slippage and scooting around of the tire/wheel assembly.

A much better hold-down device is a proper center-post "cone" such as found on any Coats 10-10, 20-20, 30-30, or 40-40, plus nearly any commercial center-post type changer.

Yes, the clamping bracket is no-good, as you can see in my Photo#2 in
my first post. The anti-spin pin keeps the tire from rotating, however.
When I made the 1/2" plate substitute bracket, I made it so the anti-spin
pin when thru IT, rather than the wheel stud hole. This way works much
better, and the clamping force is distributed around the wheel, rather than
just at four points.

I have seen the cones you are refering to.....I hope you can find one and
get it to work.

 

[flingwing1969]

When you seat your bead, simply wrap the circumference of tire with a ratchet strap and tighten it until the tire bead contacts the rim. Begin to air up and as soon as you have confirmed that the air is filling the tire, loosen the strap and finish the job - the tire will pop right onto the rim. I've done this with everything from riding mowers to my B-21's rear.

 

[bjr]

The HF tire tool is near and dear to me welded to a piece of 3/8" x 4' x 4' square plate. And I also had to replace the wheel bed plate with 1/4" plate with hole slot for the wheel lock pin to fit. I've a selection of duck bill hammers and a half bucket of used tire weights and the HF static tire balancer. I also have a the five gallon pail of Murphys tire mounting compound and a Bead Cheata air tank and the biggest slide hammer bead breaker I could find and some real decent tire spoons. I'm a real DIYer and the abosolute worst tire I've come across is a ATV tire/wheel with a bead lock embossed on the wheel. To this day I don't know what the proper method is to remove the ATV tires. Any suggestion on this? bjr

 

[bjr]

Oh I meant to add that I had, breifly,a Professional Coats rim clamp tire changer (bought used)with the jet blasters that were suppose to set the bead. I worked with it for several months. It was a joke. I sold it real quick and went and bought a manual HF tire changer with tools previously mentioned and am much happier. The Bead Cheata air tank was the best investment as it actually works. I don't do a lot of tire work but when I do it's always on a weekend or after hours and I like the convience of doing things when I need to do them. I got a buddy with two sons that come over and fixing their girlfriends flats or swapping out tires with some good yard sale finds. I've got two grown daughters that don't seem to ever have tire money so the tires get wore down to dangerous level and the they start shopping the nickel adds and Craigslist for replacements and you can guess who gets to swap them out. So, yeah , I have to do tire work. bjr

 

[Reg]

I haven't needed to change tires enough to justify the tools - yet.
I don't think it would be worth a major project for me to set up the HF thing - if past experience is any indicator of future need, etc.

The Gempler site has a nice "how to", basically they show how to do it with tires on about 48 inch rims while still mounted on the tractor.
Now THAT is a hefty and stable platform to be working against (-:
I thought about ordering up three 5ft or so tire irons (spoons, bead breakers, whatever) but as I said my need to date hasn't indicated that they would be used very much.
The "trick" is that with the tire and rim vertical you get the beads to drop down into the top of the rim - gravity works FOR you in this case.

 

[Oliver1655]

To add additional options for working with tires:
- When I'm working with tires away from my shop, I use a "HI Lift" farm jack by placing the foot nest to the rim and jacking up on my truck hitch, loaded trailer, ... to break the bead. When I was in the Army prior to deployment we had to replace all the tires on 4 - 2 1/2 ton trucks, and 4 gamma goats. With the use of the "HI Lift" farm jack, we were done by lunch time.
- I have an 80 gallon 2 stage air compressor in my shop which had a 2" plug in the side close to the bottom. I replaced it with a 2" pipe, valve and another piece of 2" pipe that I had flattened down to a flare I can use to seat the beads on tire. This keeps me from beating my legs with a blasting tank.
- I also use a 2" ratcheting strap to move the tire beads closer to the rim.
- For ATV / Lawn mower rims with a bead lock, I have built a die for my hydraulic press to work the bead over the raised ring on the rim. It takes a little time to work around the rim, but it gets it done.
- By the way I have the basic manual HF tire changer I use regularly. I have mounted the changer to a 2' square chunk of I-beam. I live out in the country and don't like spending an hour or more running a tire into town to have it repaired. I can have a car/pick-up tire off, patched and replaced in most cases in around 20 minutes. Saving $12 a repair, for 20 minutes work isn't bad wages.
- Back to the question of breaking a tractor tire bead, A Bead Cheetah sure is handy as most rear tire repairs are done on the tractor. On my Oliver I have use all-thread to bolt a length of sq tubing across the rim with a bolt going thru it to tighten against a piece of flat to push against the bead, but it is time consuming repositioning the tubing.

 

[dfkrug]

- For ATV / Lawn mower rims with a bead lock, I have built a die for my hydraulic press to work the bead over the raised ring on the rim. It takes a little time to work around the rim, but it gets it done.

I have never done an ATV tire. Their small size would allow you to use
the hyd press; that is a good suggestion.

I have never failed to break the bead on a tractor tire. I wish I could
say the same for some steel car wheels/tires I have. Too big for the
the hydraulic press.

 

[schmism]

tire pliers

 

[Dead Horse]

The neatest trick I was taught and use to set a tractor tire bead is (in conjunction with a ratchet strap if necessary) remove the valve in the valve stem and remove the chuck at the end of the compressor air line. Press the female fitting at the end of the air line down on the open valve stem.

There is an immediate and high volume flow of air pushed into the tire that will most often set the bead. This is not for the careless or less mechanically inclined, but it sure has saved me a lot of aggrivation and grief remounting tires.

As to getting them off the rims, I use my loader bucket as a pinch press on just about ANY tire rim, from motorcycle tires, ATV tires all the way up to large tractor tires. Sure beats using a pry bar and a sledge hammer!

 

[smiley]

As to getting them off the rims, I use my loader bucket as a pinch press on just about ANY tire rim, from motorcycle tires, ATV tires all the way up to large tractor tires. Sure beats using a pry bar and a sledge hammer!

I used the loader bucket for years, until I got a backhoe. It works better because of better visibility.
I have an old manual tire changer that had a spring loaded pin that popped up into a lug bolt hole to prevent the rim from spinning while removing the tire. It wasn't long enough for many modern wider rims, I made a longer pin but it wouldn't take the force and bent, so wound up with a J bolt stuck up through the base of the changer, through a bolt hole, with a spacer, washer and nut to hold the wheel in place.
Smiley