mountainbike
We have a cheetah bead blaster at work . . . but I don’t like using it
You have to time things just right, and hold it just right
If you don’t time things right, you may not get the bead seated AND the cheetah might smack you in the face
I’ve seen it happen 
Are they split rims?
meaneye: Speaking of horses, you must be a great horse-whisperer, what with all that nay-saying. 
Remind me, why did JFK say we chose to go to the moon? This is a moonshot, baby! 'merca!
And truthfully, even if it does wind up being a total failure and I wind up buying new tires and rims because I’ve ruined mine and lost three fingers in the process, I’ll still say it was worth the effort, because at least I won’t be nagged (horse pun) by the question: What if i had tried?
ok44: Well see? It wasn’t easy but you did it right? And here you are a hundred years later able to brag about it. I don’t mind a good workout. Though I prefer to work smarter, not harder, but I’ll throw a few left hooks if I have to. And being that this is a project on my own time, I can do one tire at a time, heck one a month, if i feel like it. I think I can recover from tire to tire in a month.
mtnbike & db: Interesting idea there with the seating strap. Though db promptly talked me out of it with his frightening post. I’ve got a pretty face. Aim to keep it that way.
Though it did remind me of another possible helpful option- a tire beading ring:
Either of you have any experience with that? The vid certainly makes it look easy enough.
keith: No they aren’t split rims. If they were, I wouldn’t be trying this- as I’ve heard those can be crazy dangerous.
Really, no matter how this winds up, I think I’m gonna necro this thread whenever I get done and let you all know how it went. I’ll be honest and admit failure if it happens, or I’ll lie my butt off and tell you how easy it was.
I still vividly remember years ago being in a remote village in Africa seeing an elderly man and a young boy replacing a tire on tractor, using only simple hand tools (crowbar, big mallet, etc), miles away from their village, on a hot dirt road. I was impressed.
@velocityboy:
I applaud your enthusiasm and willingness to try this. Nearly all of us here (maybe all) have taken on similar mechanical challenges in our past. You will learn a great deal and will almost assuredly be glad you pursued it, regardless of the outcome.
I would think the cost of a shop to mount and dismount the tires and rebalance them would not be prohibitive. A used tire business may be a good bet.
Personally, I’d go the tire shop route. They have all the tools and expertise for this one time job.
Be aware that the Cheetah Bead Blaster referenced in db’s post is not the same device as a bead seating strap. Here’s a link to images of the bead blaster.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cheetah+bead+blaster&qpvt=cheetah+bead+blaster&qpvt=cheetah+bead+blaster&qpvt=cheetah+bead+blaster&FORM=IGRE
I have hand mounted 13 inch road race slicks way back when I was MUCH younger. Darn near killed me spooning them off the rim. I later used a set of 3 piece modular wheels and I’d take them apart to pop the tire off after breaking the bead. Still a bear of a job.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend it with 10 ply truck tires. If you try and you are successful, I tip my hat to you sir!
Doing 6 ply truck tires by hand just about killed me. The only thing worse than the 6 plys are the 5.00 X 16 tires on old Harley Davidson safety rims. Those will learn you (grammar not corrected) words you never even dreamed of…
I used to do this all the time, but you will need 2 tire spoons and a valve core remover. To break the beads I used to drive up on a 2x4 laid on the tire but not the rim. If the bead doesn’t break, leave the weight of the vehicle on the tire and hit it with a sledge next to the rim.
You will need the valve core out to inflate it quick enough to seat the tire against the bead, at least with my compressor.
Index the tire to either the wheel weight or the valve so you won’t have to worry about painting over the marks.
When the video above ends, take a look at some of the other videos on guys changing tires in less developed areas. They don’t speak English anyway.
On one of the boards I used to frequent, to save money, a guy decided to have a hernia repaired without anesthetic against the advice of his doctor. Yeah he lived through it but suspect he would have rather been a POW. He complained to the doctor when the topical Novocaine was breached as the cut went deeper. Doc said I told you it was going to be painful. He just didn’t think it would be THAT painful. Cussing, screaming, gritting teeth, calling for mommy. Advice is given but not always heeded.
If the tires are deflated the sealing surface on the rims can be accessed for sanding and the valve stems can be replaced. 16.5" rims used larger valve stems than light duty vehicle rims. If the location of the tire relative to the valve stem and weights is marked the tire can be re-inflated back to be in balance. DIY dismounting and remounting the tires can turn into a real nightmare.
keith asked: "Are they split rims? "
They can’t be. 16.5" wheels are all one piece.
I have unmounted & mounted many passenger car size tires without much trouble . I can’t recall doing 10 ply tires though . I remove the valve core from the tire & lay it down flat right up against the front tire of another vehicle .
With the window open & the door slightly open I can lean over far enough to see what I’m doing . I then drive up on the tire with the front tire of the vehicle as close to the rim as I can get without driving up on the rim itself . This usually breaks the bead loose on that side , flip the tire over & repeat the process on the other side .
Occasionally I’ll have to back off & turn the tire on the ground a little bit & drive up on it again before it’ll break loose . Then I’ll swab the tire bead & the bead seating area of the rim with dish-washing liquid . Using a couple { LARGE SCREWDRIVERS } , tire tools or other similar objects & a heavy rubber mallet I haven’t found it too difficult to remove the tires from the rims .
The front side pry’s off & you need a pry tool & the mallet to remove the back side of the tire over the front of the rim .
Like I said , I can’t remember doing 10 ply tires which would be stiffer . Try one & see how it goes . The only tires I recall failing on was ATV tires . The sidewalls were so soft that pulling a vehicle up on them just mashed them flat without applying pressure to the beads to break the seal .
DIY tire changing is never recommended on alloy rims you value the appearance of.
I like to DIY anything I can, so I just did four tires on an old civic with steel rims and wheel covers, since I had no worries about scratching those.
Used the harbor freight manual changer, $35 on sale, and if anyone goes this route, it really needs to be anchored in concrete to work effectively, a pallet mount limits the amount of leverage you can put on the mounting bar. Maybe if you had it on a long two by four with cars parked on the ends it would be secure enough.
The tire changer has a bead breaker on the side that I covered with the tread of a cut up used tire to protect against scratching, hf should have had it built in.
There’s a technique to using the mounting bar that makes it fairly straightforward, but a lot of videos trying to use it don’t do it properly. It has to be used in a clockwise direction with the bead sitting against the recess in the end of the mounting side of the bar, and key factors is using ample tire lube and making sure the opposite side of the tire is in the drop center of the rim to gain the necessary clearance for the bead to go over the edge of the rim. Just have to brace it against the center post and pull it around in a CW direction. Difficulty depends on how stiff and old the tire is.
Any edge mounted wheel weights should be removed first and the rim cleaned of any rubber residue that would interfere with the sliding mount bar that necessarily rides against the rim in this process.
Real tire machines don’t touch the rim edge when mounting, so that’s really what’s needed for non beater wheels that you care about. Unless you bought one of those, taking it to the shop is necessary then.
Seating the bead usually is easy, but one time I did have a narrow tire and rim combination that had a large gap when mounted that there was no way to seat just from my compressor. Ended up buying a tire seating tank for $90, just because defeat is dismal, lol. It shoots a quick blast of air stored in the small tank in one instant through the large ball valve controlled nozzle and the air quickly pushes the tire up against the rim and seals it . Definitely need earmuffs when using this thing because it is one loud sucker. I kind of had my doubts about how well it would work but it did the trick amazingly enough. You’re supposed to hold on to it when deploying the valve so it won’t kick back in your face as suggested, no real concerns there.
Balancing I had one of the bubble type ones from hf, but that was of dubious effectiveness, seemed it would only pick up really lopsided wheels, good for coarse balancing I guess.
Harbor Freight sells a tire changer for home use that will do up to 16" wheels for $44.99. I haven’t checked it out, so I don’t know if it’s any good. I doubt if it would last until noon of the first day in a shop, and it’s totally hand operated so it wouldn’t meet a shop’s needs anyway, but it might be okay for occasional home use.
Discount Tire (and many tire places,) will fix flats for free. Even if they don’t find an issue, I would gladly pay a couple bucks for new valve stems rather than $45 for a home tire machine that will hardly ever get used.
I’m all for learning a new task or just playing around to see if I can do something, but tire busting is not something I am at all interested in, lol
Me too. I tried getting a tire with a 45 aspect ration off a rim by hand once. I failed. But I learned.
I’ll never try that again. 
When I repainted my trailer rims and was getting new tires after that, I broke the beads with a bottle jack mounted under a steel frame. That was hard enough. No way I’d do a large tire for the few dollars at the tire shop.
