I am getting tired of paying the local tire guy to swap my race tires around
all the time. Not to mention the hassle factor of yarding the wheels/tires too
and from the tire shop.
I have an old air operated tire machine that I inherited from my father who
used it in his service station many years ago. This machine was originally
designed to handle 15" wheels as that was the defacto wheel size back in those
days. This machine will break the bead and peel the tire from the rim. Then
mount a new tire and seat the bead. This works fine on regular old steel 15"
wheels.
My race wheels are 17" and much wider then the old 15" passenger tires. The
17" wheels sort of fit on the tire machine turntable. If I can get the bead
busted loose it looks like the machine will peel a tire off/on the 17" wheels.
The problem is getting the bead loose. The downward handle/shoehorn thingy
does not have enough height in its range of motion to get up on top of the
wide race tires to break the topside bead. The bottom shoehorn thingy travels
up and is supposed to meet the tire at its edge and break the underside bead
loose. Because the geometry of the mechanism being designed for 15" this means
the bottom shoehorn thingy contacts the wide race wheel too far inward of the
tire edge. This is hard on the wheels as you can imagine. :^)
So, I was wondering if any of you had experience with manual tire bead
busters? I know enough about tire changing to know that I would not want to
change a tire entirely manually. But if the air machine will handle the
mount/dismount of the tire maybe I could get a manual bead buster and make it
worth the effort?
BTW, I do have the capability to balance the wheel/tires as well.
What do you think?
Wayne
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