Tire changer

[Guest]

Had some trouble changing dirt bike tires yesterday. Its been my experience that dirt bike tires with narrow rims are the worst. Don?t change tires often so I watched some videos for tips.


Came across this video for the macho types that have trouble changing tires. Enjoy.

 

[Guest]

Had some trouble changing dirt bike tires yesterday. Its been my experience that dirt bike tires with narrow rims are the worst. Don’t change tires often so I watched some videos for tips.


Came across this video for the macho types that have trouble changing tires. Enjoy.

Wow, That is a pretty slick machine. She made it look easy. I changed my own tires for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I gotta say it was not as bad as I thought it would be. It's funny such a simple thing can feel so satisfying.

 

[limeex2]

Had some trouble changing dirt bike tires yesterday. Its been my experience that dirt bike tires with narrow rims are the worst. Don’t change tires often so I watched some videos for tips.


Came across this video for the macho types that have trouble changing tires. Enjoy.

This is tool is nice, takes up no garage space and you dont need to be a linebacker to work it. I found a place nearby that does it for $25 mnt and bal. Its not worth my time to mess with it for that. 2 x 4's and tire jack's?.....

 

[Guest]

It looks like a nice piece of equipment, but at $349USD plus shipping it is priced about $300 more than it is worth to me. All it amounts to is a better stand to hold the wheel than using a 5 gallon bucket or garbage can. The little lever for getting the tire on the rim is nice, but I can do the same, with the same effort, with a tire iron. Having a positive hold down for getting the first side of the tire off the rim would be nice, though. Makes me think I should just work up a pin style holder for one of my existing work stands.


Mark

 

[Burque73]

well, be sure to report back,Burque73.
sure see some stuff I'd never seen before.."mojo-levers".............

I finally got an opportunity to put this thing to use, so I'm reporting back. I helped a friend change tires on a 79 KZ 1000 yesterday. First time using the H. F. setup with Mojoblocks on the clamps and the Mojolever. See pics below. It took a while to get the hang of this setup and here's what I learned.

>The rod that goes through the center of the wheel is way too large to fit through the bearings on a KZ as well as a GS. I found an old iron stair baluster in the corner of my garage with a 9/16" diameter for the front wheel and a piece of conduit to slide over the baluster close to the diameter of the rear axle.

>A 17 inch rear wheel is somehow in between sizes in the drilled pin locations. This may be because the mojoblocks added about 3/8 of an inch to the thickness of each one of the three clamp points. I will drill more holes for in between sizes. To improvise, we left the pins out and wrapped a ratchet strap around all three that squeezed them tight to the rim.

>Even with the factory installed screw in clamp the wheel will turn while working on the tire so another ratchet strap through the wheel down to one of the three support arms held it tight.

>The top of the clamps are pretty rough on the sidewall of the tire. It would be best to have the mojoblocks a little taller or grind down the top of the clamps a bit.

>I bent the round end of the mojolever trying to get started pulling the top edge of the tire over the rim. This may be because it was a really old, stiff tire and the opposite side wouldn't fall down to the narrow part of the wheel. Maybe some C-clamps would have helped. It worked best using large spoons to get started de-mounting the old tire, then going the rest of the way around with the mojolever.

>We couldn't find any ru-glide tire lube at the two places we looked so dawn dish soap was our substitute. I won't use it next time. Maybe WD40 or spray furniture polish would work better IF I don't find the right lube.

>The mounting end of the mojolever slid the tire over the rim but didn't force it down far enough. We resorted to spoons to mount the new tires. Again, maybe better lube would have made the difference.

>In all, the H.F. machine was little more than an elevated work platform for us. The mojo stuff saved maybe 20% of the hard work leaving 80% to the spoons.

>The bead breaker worke really well.

Unrelated to the equipment, we had a heck of a time getting tires to inflate enough to pop into the bead. We wrapped a ratchet strap around the tire to force the sidewalls to expand, bounced it on the floor all around, massaged it repeatedly, and finally it inflated. There's that need for good lube again.

Bead breaker

Here's the de-mount end of the lever.

The mounting end

Clamps with mojoblocks. Note how high above the blocks the steel edge is.

A similar setup showing the three support arms, but these mojoblocks are above the clamps.

A copied image showing the center bar

 

[Guest]

Pit Posse tire mounting lubricant is available via eBay & Amazon.


Cold tires are a lot harder to change. My basement can be a bit chilly, so I now have a space heater near the tire changer to warm things up when needed.


I got the No-Mar because we were doing a cafe build with powder coated rims. I wasn?t going to hear the end of it if I got something cheaper that damaged the powder coat.


The size of the compressor air tank makes a big difference when trying to seat the bead.
BestRest has a sleeved ratchet strap for use with really meager compressors. (Its a pretty simple product so you can make your own & save some $$$.
https://bestrestproducts.com/product-category/beadsetr/

 

[Burque73]

Pit Posse tire mounting lubricant is available via eBay & Amazon.


Cold tires are a lot harder to change. My basement can be a bit chilly, so I now have a space heater near the tire changer to warm things up when needed.


I got the No-Mar because we were doing a cafe build with powder coated rims. I wasn?t going to hear the end of it if I got something cheaper that damaged the powder coat.


The size of the compressor air tank makes a big difference when trying to seat the bead.
BestRest has a sleeved ratchet strap for use with really meager compressors. (Its a pretty simple product so you can make your own & save some $$$.
https://bestrestproducts.com/product-category/beadsetr/

I thought about the temperature being a factor. Almost used a space heater to warm the tires but it wasn't really cold. Well, 50?F in the garage isn't cold compared to what most folks are seeing now anyway. Still, thanks for mentioning it, I'll warm up the rubber next time.

The KZ rims were already marred up from years of tire spoon use so it wasn't a big deal on that one. My GS has no marks at all on the wheels and I'd like to keep it that way. I'll get the hang of using this thing I'm sure.

Thanks for the BeadsetR link. That's pretty cool.

 

[Guest]

I own a small parts and accessories store, but have always been a motorcycle mechanic up until this point.

For offroad tires I'm currently the go to shop in my county, and no doubt hurt a few out of town dealers. I only have a little no-mar for street though.

Moose Racing makes a nice little changing stand for reasonable money and it works well. For hand changing of spoke wheels I recommend moose ty-er irons (formerly ty Davis ty-er irons) as they're the ideal size. Motion Pro bread buddies work well as an extra hand to hold the tire bead in the drop center on spoke rims but don't work in every situation. The thin, flat, motion pro rim guards seem to be the toughest I've used but I only use them on street or new off road rims. A valve stem fishing tool is a must for tubes. Lang makes a good one. No mar paste lube is a heck of a good tire lube, as is the yamaha spray if it's still made. The no-mar's bead breaker works well enough but so do motion pro "bead pro" forged steel bars too, and I've never had a problem on my GS with the Clamp method. All of the name brand items should be readily available at your local parts unlimited dealer.

Spoons can change a GS tire easily enough with rim guards. Just use lube, little bites, and keep the bead in the center of the rim. On tube type tires never bring the spoon above perpendicular to the rim, and you'll never pop a tube. I'm probably no master, but I haven't popped a tube since 2005 and I change a whole whole lot of tires.

Sorry, not trying to make you do anything different. Just telling any folk that might not be ready for a changer that it's really not a deal breaker.

Now ATV beads, those suck. I'm trying out a beadbuster 455 right now and so far I'd review it positive.

If anybody is near I40 in the North Carolina foothills I'd happily help any fellow GSers. I'm not good for much in life but people look at me with awe when they watch me change tires lol

 

[Guest]

Oh, and because it made me feel special...

Dunlop motorcycle tires shared a photo of a freshly changed MX33 I did this week on Facebook. If you see the post by Race & Ride they shared give it a like!

 

[Guest]

Had some trouble changing dirt bike tires yesterday. Its been my experience that dirt bike tires with narrow rims are the worst. Don?t change tires often so I watched some videos for tips.


Came across this video for the macho types that have trouble changing tires. Enjoy.

I'm sure she has done that many times to make it look so easy, but I try to avoid doing dirt bike tires as much as possible and I have a real tire machine. The tire she is removing is too pliable to have been used on the rims for a season or two. I hate doing them even with the machine. The sidewalls don't give like they were in the video. The side walls turn to rock. I've had some so bad I almost broke out my cutting disk and my machine is made for truck and car tires.

 

[Guest]

...
Now ATV beads, those suck. I'm trying out a beadbuster 455 right now and so far I'd review it positive.
...

A friend brought some 4wheeler tires over for changing a while back.


We had no luck breaking those beads. Then did some Google + YouTube searches, and found the trick.
Don?t remove the valve cores & keep the wheels slightly inflated. That made those beads super easy to deal with.