Rarrrghh! Me man! Me change tyre myself! Rarrghh! Was surprisingly easy. The savings I’ll make will pay for the tools in 12 months. Plus more tools always good. Also - more convenient to change tyres at my whim. Also - made me feel manly.
Well done, envious; it was bad enough replacing tyres on trad steel rims - had levers flying all over the place and trapped too many digits - quite dangerous IME!
Nice work. How much is the rig out of interest? I’ve got a compressor and the local bandits where I live charge me £15 a tyre! Fleecing bar stewards….
And soapy water all over the place. And pinching inner tubes. One of the few jobs I don't ever want to do again!
Once the tube is installed put a small amount of air in the tube to get it to shape before fitting the other bead, prevents the flat tube getting caught by a lever or the bead.
Posted this yonks ago, might be a few pointers in there to help people Been fitting my own tyres for donkeys years now, like everything else it gets easier with practice. Some of my kit shown below :- Take a bit of time and make a tyre changing board ( the bit with carpet on ) you can't see from the pic but it has 2" batons all around the underside so its raised off the floor, then when you drop the disc into the big hole, the wheel sits nicely on the carpet and doesn't get scratched. A set of rim protectors, 8" motion pro tyre levers, I used to ride Enduro's so I've changed tyres / tubes inthe middle of Stang forest with these, you don't need anything bigger. The grease is for the wheel spindle of course, tyre soap for getting the tyre on, put plenty on the "up" ramp of the wheel leading to the tyre well as that's what the tyre struggles to get over when your inflating it. Home made wheel balancer made from old paddock stand and 4 bearings, ( tyre is just stood alongside it for no reason really! ) A few observations, ...excuse me if I'm pointing out the obvious :- Tyres go on / off easier when they are warm, stick the new ones in against your hot water tank for an hour or so. Now you may cringe at this, but no need to.........I use a spade to break the beads,...shove two rim protectors together, a thin cloth over them, place the spade up against them and jump on spade with 14 stone !, they come off in a couple of goes and I've never marked a rim, your not levering against the rim, your just pressing the tyre vertically downwards, look at a pro bead breaker in a tyre place next time your in, its just a mechanised spade blade really. When your trying to get the tyre off the top of the rim, use your knees to keep the bottom of the tyre in the wheel well, that'll give you more room to ease the top off. As I mentioned before, put plenty tyre soap on the "up" ramp of the wheel leading to the tyre well as that's what the tyre struggles to get over when your inflating it. When your blowing the new tyre onto the bead, remove the valve so you get more air in quicker, you need a big volume of air in really quickly for best results, a compressor with a large reservoir is ideal. Some garage forcourt pumps just put the air in "pulse" style, you'd be on forever with one of these. Check the bead is seated and runs concentric with the rim. Check direction of rotation of tyre is correct, I've seen them fitted backwards! and I've also seen fork pinch bolts not tightened up again by so called "professionals" Don't assume the valve is the heaviest point of your bare wheel, check the balance of the wheel with the tyre off, I've had wheels where the heaviest point was about 8" away from the valve. Mark the actual heaviest point and align the dot on the tyre here, the more accurate you are matching these, the less balance weights you will use. Scrub new tyres in and check air pressure after a couple of days. Apart from saving a couple of quid ( not my main reason ) I'd rather do tyres and other things myself, noone else takes as much care of your stuff as you do yourself and your life depends on these baby's, when I pointed it out to the guy who's fork bolts had not been done up, he was livid and rightly so...I just wouldn't trust my life to a spotty 19 year old apprentice! Can’t get rid of that Photobucket sh1te,..sorry? Hope some of this helps, Poucher
Thanks! I feel inspired My mate must have changed 30 odd tyres in front of me but we were always blethering away while he did it and I didn’t really pay much attention to what he was doing Isn’t that terrible? But the poor bugger passed away so it’s too late for tutorials. I’ve got a compressor in the garage so I’m toying with the idea of going all in
I actually inflated and seated this with a normal electric car tyre inflator…although I had ordered a compressor from ScrewFix (£99) it hadn’t arrived when I did this. Will probably be even easier with a proper compressor!
