Trevor Posted July 6, 2003 Share Posted July 6, 2003 I bought a tire changer - the manual made-in-China kind from Harbor Freight - a few years ago on one of their 50% sales. It's been in the box in my garage ever since, but today I decided to put it together and give it a try. It works great! I have used the electric ones a few times before, so i was pleasantly surprised by how well their 2-ended tool works to pop the bead on and off the rim. It even came with a plastic sleeve to protect the rim on alloy wheels. Here's a pic on their site. Mine is painted red. The only problem is the tire iron is about 3 feet long (for leverage) and the changer needs to be bolted down to something heavy (like the garage floor) or it wants to spin around. It chewed a big hole in the driveway until I lag-bolted it to a 4x4x8 post. Thinking portability I took an old truck tire (good use for an ex-Explorer Firestone Wilderness AT 235-70-15) and filled it with concrete. Set 4 anchor bolts and re-bar in the concrete to bolt the changer down. I also set 3 pieces of pipe vertically through the concrete. 2 of them are 1" dia for bolting to the floor or staking it in the ground. the 3rd pipe is 2.375" dia and it makes a nice holder for the tire iron. Saves me a trip to the service station and gives your upper body a workout too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cbrunberg Posted July 6, 2003 Share Posted July 6, 2003 Trevor it looks cool but how do you balance the tire after you mount it. When I was a kid my grandfather used to have a manual balancer but I haven't seen one in about 30 years. In the 70's i used to put fix a flat in my motorcycle tires after mounting and then ride 100 mph until the stuff dried. This wound give me flat protection and balance the wheel. It was good enough for the AFM racing of the day. A car tire is much larger... I wonder if it would work? Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
280Zone Posted July 6, 2003 Share Posted July 6, 2003 Thanks for that review, I've been thinking about getting one of those but figured it wouldn't work too good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forrest Posted July 6, 2003 Share Posted July 6, 2003 How much was it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted July 6, 2003 Author Share Posted July 6, 2003 Balancing is another machine Let me see .... HF does sell a dynamic one for about $900. I paid $30-$35 for the changer about 5 yrs ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen Posted July 9, 2003 Share Posted July 9, 2003 Aren't there cheap tire balancers at JC Whitney? Also, can you change any wheel/tire combo? I bought my tires at a friends shop and they had an electric machine but told me they couldn't mount the tires cuz of the shape of the lip on my wheels. Owen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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