Tyre removal / fitting

TrickyWicky

Hi

Before anyone suggests this is easy, I'm not talking about taking an entire wheel off and putting the spare on the car.

What I'd like to know is if it is possible to remove the tyre from the actual metal wheel and fit aanother / same one yourself? Car tyres are obviously a bit different from push bike tyres. I have a small collection of alloys in the shed for my car some with duff tyres and others with good tyres but alloys that need refurbing. I figured I'd like to try refurbing them myself but the tyre thing has me stumped!

Thanks

Ranger8

TrickyWicky wrote: »

Hi

Before anyone suggests this is easy, I'm not talking about taking an entire wheel off and putting the spare on the car.

What I'd like to know is if it is possible to remove the tyre from the actual metal wheel and fit aanother / same one yourself? Car tyres are obviously a bit different from push bike tyres. I have a small collection of alloys in the shed for my car some with duff tyres and others with good tyres but alloys that need refurbing. I figured I'd like to try refurbing them myself but the tyre thing has me stumped!

Thanks

Not worth the effort, just whip it to Kwikfit or the like and one of the boys will do them for the price of a pint.;)

mikey72

I don't know, but I'm just about to give it a go.
I normally break the bead by jacking the motorhome up on it, but I've never actually took the tyre off yet.
I have got a couple of tyre levers ready to give it a go this week though.

mark5

not worth the hassle, pay someone!

TrickyWicky

Ranger8 wrote: »

Not worth the effort, just whip it to Kwikfit or the like and one of the boys will do them for the price of a pint.;)

mark5 wrote: »

not worth the hassle, pay someone!

Well I was hoping to take all 7 off and then see if I could get 4 replacement tyres for a cheaper price if I fit them myself. Plus I just wanted to know if it could be done - neither of you have really contributed anything in that respect.

How the hell would I fit 7 alloys in the back of the car to even get them to K/Fit? - Plus I'd have to pay them to re-fit once I've refurbed the alloys.

mikey72

I've done that as well.
£10 to take the old tyre off, give me the alloy back, let me clean it up etc, then put in a new valve, put the tyre supplied by me on, and balance it up.
But, you're looking at £70 there, like me now, so I want to try myself. I'll still have to pay a couple of quid for the balance though, but I've bought new valves for about 50p each.

gilbert_and_sullivan

You need to buy 2 proper shaped tyre levers for starters, about 2ft long.

The biggest problem is breaking the bead seal, this requires far more pressure/violence than you can imagine.

Some try driving over the tyre and hope it breaks the seal, sometimes it works but often the tyre just deforms, best using a truck with very high pressure tyres.
.
Some try using a heavy hammer and chisel to drive it off, given how springy the tyre wall is there is a good chance of injury or wheel damage.

Luckily i have a proper bead slammer at home and levers and i can do my own, but even i don't any more unless i'm removing from a steel wheel or alloy wheel that i'm scrapping, you always end up doing damage to the bead area or the bead slammer jumps and you put a gash in your best wheels.

If you are handy chap you can make a bead slammer, take a 3 to 4ft long 1+" thick crow bar and heat the chiselled end forming a curved spade shape...this will go between the bead and wheel...make a slide hammer type action steel sleeve to fit over the crow bar probably 15 to 20lbs weight, weld a solid cap on and you have your own bead slammer, brutish things but unless you have some sort of press and can shape something to force into the bead under constant pressure you will end up needing brute force anyway.

Assuming you have broken the beads and not yourself by now..

Lubricate the beads well with soapy water, and remove and refit just as you would a bicycle tyre, check which way round to work, some wheel designs mean removal from the rear, depends on the shape of the well.

Once refitted your real problems begin, you need enough air volume to seal the bead, and might need a luggage strap as a tourniquet, then assuming you can inflate the thing you've then got to balance it.

Assuming you are young enough, investing in some second hand equipment will pay for itself over the years and you could make yourself some cash doing tyres for friends, but you will need a fair bit of room for a tyre fitting machine and balancer and compressor.

s_b

i have a tyre machine and a bead breaker and some modern wheel tyre combinations are really difficult to break on the bead with what i have (think punto as an example) if im doing alloys i break the beads on the machine then use the tyre levers to take the tyres off and put the tyres back on
its hard work and sometimes impossible so i have to use the local tyre shop

so no you wont do it and probably damage the bead on the tyre in the process rip some cords in the bead and kill yourself when you seat the tyre on the rim with the compressed air and it blows off taking 3 of your fingers with it

well you asked:D

Notmyrealname

TrickyWicky wrote: »

Hi

Before anyone suggests this is easy, I'm not talking about taking an entire wheel off and putting the spare on the car.

What I'd like to know is if it is possible to remove the tyre from the actual metal wheel and fit aanother / same one yourself? Car tyres are obviously a bit different from push bike tyres. I have a small collection of alloys in the shed for my car some with duff tyres and others with good tyres but alloys that need refurbing. I figured I'd like to try refurbing them myself but the tyre thing has me stumped!

Thanks

Yes you can. First you'll need to break the bead. Two options:

1) Let the air out of the tyre, drive the car round in a circle til the tyre bead breaks but that usually shafts the tyre:
2) Lump hammer and a bit of angle iron. Place the angle iron like this onto the tyre - ^ - with one edge in the gap between the tyre and rim and pound on it with a hammer until the bead breaks.

From then on its like taking the tyre off a bike rim. You need a very strong set of tyre levers and they need to be around 3ft long - mobile tyre fitters use them for doing HGV tyres.

Fitting is like putting a bike tyre on. You'll then need to find a way of rapidly pressurising the tyre to seat the bead. And then you'll need to get the wheel balanced.

By the time you've bought the tyre levers though, it'll be cheaper to go pay someone to remove and refit them.