mounting tires
 

possible to mount tires on 16" and 17" spoke wheels by hand?

Re: mounting tires
 

With some good tire irons, tire lube, and maybe some help, I think it should be possible. We recently installed an 11.00x16 front tractor tire by hand . 6 or 8 ply tire so it was heavy.

Re: mounting tires
 

The real danger is taking them to a shop staffed by high school students where they will put them on an automatic tire changing machine and bend the rims. Either do it yourself of find some that will do it using tire irons. I have done a lot of them in the past.

Charlie Stephens

Re: mounting tires
 

I herd about a guy that uses a black plastic bag on the wheel because it is so slick it can be done just by hand. I have not mounted a tire on my model A but I used that system to mount a UTV tire and it worked awsome.

Re: mounting tires
 

What kind of a bag? Like a heavy duty contractor trash bag?

Re: mounting tires
 

I did just this on my '34. The first one took me perhaps 20 minutes as I was still learning. The remaining four took less than ten minutes each.

I simply had placed a heavy plastic bag over the pushed like mad. Once the tire is on the rim, pull the bag out.

Re: mounting tires
 

Kube has it right that UTV tire was the easiest I have ever done. Good luck, You just need practice.

Re: mounting tires
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbdPPwjKQlI


R

Re: mounting tires
 

We changed our tires by hand when we were racing. A lot of work, but really not that difficult.

Re: mounting tires
 

Lots of soap and a rubber hammer.

Re: mounting tires
 

I've changed a lot of 17 inch tires for 33 - 34's by hand. Just lay them on the grass or a piece of carpet and have at it with a couple of tire irons. The hardest part is breaking the bead on the old old ones. That can be a challenge sometimes.
I never tried the plastic bag trick, next time I'll try that.
Some people use the spare tire holder as a work station - I never did that either, but it would save a little wear on the old knees.

Re: mounting tires
 

Just as a matter of course, I have found that the larger the wheel diameter, the easier manual mounting and dismounting of tires is. The 14" tires on our old minivan were a real struggle, but the 15" Coker Classics I mounted on the '51 were a much easier task. I bought a pair of 16" winter tires for my pickup and was dreading mounting them because of their larger size. The went on easily. I think it has something to do with the larger the wheel size, the less percentage the bead has to stretch to slip over the rim. I have never worked with any, but have heard 12" trailer tires and even 8" wheelbarrow tire can be a real bear. I have never worked with 17's, but I expect they would be easy-peasy, especially with their small section dimensions.

(I have an el cheapo Northern Tool tire machine that didn't work at all out of the box. After I made a few modifications, it works quite well for me.)

Re: mounting tires
 

Tubman, you are correct about the smaller the tire the harder it is. part of it is because it is so hard to hang onto the tire and work the irons with both hands because the tire is so small. when the cars with the wire wheels were new most of them were change by hand.

Re: mounting tires
 

My wife and I changed one of my Ford 8n rear tires with just tire irons, we were covered with black rubber dust from heat to toe. One of the tire irons was a very long heavy duty iron made for tractor tires. I have since bought the HF manual changer and mounted it to a cement floor, have done 11 sets of car tires so far.
Tractor is sold so I don't have to worry about 10.4x28 tires anymore.