Dumb tire change question...

[Fred Munro]

Hi Doug;

Yes, this can be done - I did it many times in my youth when money was more
important that time (I hand changed the RR tire on my '66 Dodge Van every
200 miles all the way from British Columbia to Ontario in 1976 - did you
know that hot tube patches don't stick very well to radial tubes? - in fact,
they'll stick for about 200 miles :o). I just did it last year on a set of
wheels from a '20s Dodge - the steel in the wheels was too soft for a modern
tire machine.

The first caveat is don't try it on alloy wheels unless you don't mind
gouging them with the tire irons and your home-made bead breaker.

The second caveat is breaking the bead - this is the most difficult job. The
old bumper jacks (you know, the ones that came with the cars in the '60s)
were designed to be used as bead breakers - the short side of the base plate
had a convex cut-out that fit a rim. You laid the tire on the ground under
the bumper, pounded the base plate between the tire bead and the rim, set up
the jack, and merrily jacked away until the bead broke. I still have one of
these jacks laying around for just this purpose. Other styles of jack will
work if the baseplate is properly shaped.

Once the bead is broken on both sides of the tire, you can lever the tire
off with a good set of tire irons. Remember to stand on the opposite side of
the tire so the bead will drop into the centre of the rim - this is the
reason rims have a drop-centre.

Getting the tire back on is an entirely different story.

This is a tough job on modern tubeless tires - the beads are very strong.
I'd heartily recommend taking them to a tire shop and paying the $5 per to
get them swapped. I'd never change a tire by hand unless there was no other
option - too many excellent opportunities for injury and/or flying tools.

HTH

Fred Munro
'94 S4

-----Original Message-----
From: quattro-admin at audifans.com [mailto:quattro-admin at audifans.com]On
Behalf Of Doug Johnson
Sent: February 22, 2003 2:32 PM
To: q-list
Subject: Dumb tire change question...


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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I've got three sets of wheels and tires, and want to change which wheels
each set of tires is mounted on.

Can I lever tires off of wheels w/ brute force, w/o dying?

Thanks!

 ~ Doug

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