1st2know
Senior Member
Offline
Currently between Savages
Posts: 295
Seattle, WA
Gender:
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I just changed my back tire myself and saved $40. It took me two hours and I have 652 sore muscles, 3 bruises and 4 scraped knuckles. It's more of a pride thing than a money saving thing. It took 4 days for my middle aged body to heal, and I kept my 17mm wrench in my back pocket for those 4 days just to let everyone know what a stud I am.
To get the old tire off:
- Leave the new tire in the sun to warm up while you remove the old tire.
- use two 10 inch spoons and one 18 inch tire iron. The 18 inch is optional, but it makes the job much easier. I used a large cable cuff to hold the spoons down to the spokes to free up both hands to pry.
- I used a C-Clamp to break the bead on the old tire - this is not ideal, as it takes a while and it could destroy the side-walls of the tire. This tire was dry-rot and had a gash in the shoulder so I didn't care what happened to it.
- Lots of Windex to keep the tire lubed.
To put the new tire on:
- Getting the 1st bead over the rim is 90% finesse and 10% Windex. The loudest 4-letter words eak out as the rim moves when I try to push/pry/punch the bead down.
- It took me 30 minutes to get the valve stem in. This happens after the 1st bead is over the rim. Use some gloves with the fingertips cut off.
- Getting the other bead stretched over the rim require leverage, muscle and patience(and Windex). It goes over an inch at a time. I used a bar clamp to keep the bead from slipping off while I pried it on from the other way.
It took 2 hours because I did it by my self. If I had some help, I bet we'd be done in 1 hour and 58 minutes. All while changing the tire, I kept thinking of Old Fellers paper on using a 40k mile thread automobile tire in the back. The idea of not doing this for another 20-40k miles sounds pretty good.
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