After managing to post a blistering 3 full blog entries in 2016 reader you'd be forgiven for thinking that I would retreat from the limelight cast by a (near) double figure all time hit count on at least one of those entries and dial back my post rate for the coming year if only to give the server banks a breather.
I feel compelled however to type up this first post of the year as at least one person asked what sort of things I use the shed for, although as a disclaimer I could quite easily have imagined that conversation. So the following is just one example:-
We have alloy wheels on our car, a couple of which been misbehaving of late, namely going flat within a few days. Checking the one more closely revealed a nail embedded in the tread. I decided to give repairing it a go, rolled it into the shed and duly plugged the offending hole with a repair kit. I noticed however that the spare I put on while I did so also went down in an alarmingly short time and after investigating further, i.e. dunking them in a wheelbarrow full of water, found that they were also leaking from around the rims. In all I had three tyres which struggled to contain a useful amount of wind for more than three or four days.
Taking the car to the local tyre monkies to get them reseated may sound all well and good but I suspected that there may be more going on than a quick rub with a rag and a brushfull of bead sealer could put right, especially as two of the tyres had been put on within the last six months or so. The answer then seemed to sound a bit like make (or buy...nah..) a D.I.Y tyre changing contraption so I could take a better shuftys at the alloys au naturel..Oh I say steady on there petrolheads
It turned out that the wheels were in a pretty poor state. The paint around the inside of the rims where the tyre bead seals had bubbled and there was a fair amount of corrosion. The one pictured was actually the best of the three. I stripped all the paint off the sealing faces, lightly sanded the alloy back to shiny and then resprayed them with some alloy wheel paint to protect them again. Not a full recondition job, just the bits that matter when you want the things to stay airtight. When refitting I've used a smear of rubber red grease rather than tyre soap/bead sealer..no real reason other than I had some to hand and I know it will offer a bit of extra protection against any further corrosion.
It seems that most manual tyre changers suffer from various things, a lack of capacity so low profile tyres are very awkward to work with, stability, as in they need concreting in or at the very least bolting to the floor or a large pallet which means they take up ridiculous amounts of room,not to mention that you can easily damage the alloy when using one as they are basically a clamp for the wheel and a honking great pry bar. My particular alloy wheels happen to have 225 45 17's on them which tick pretty much all of the drawback boxes when it comes to changing them.
After watching several youtubesfull of the subject, mainly balding rotund redneck types struggling to demonstrate various Chinese looking harbour freight type toolage I decided to adopt the suck it and see approach.
I turned a few bits of scrap flat metal bar, some old handy angle shelving parts, gas pipe, an electric motor foot plate, a Kawasaki 250Z front wheel spacer and headstock washer, some bolts from a bunk bed, a nylon washing machine transit fastener, a rubber mat, a plastic box divider a length of 5/8" whit all thread, more than a few 2.5mm welding rods oh and a can of red spray paint into...well a tyre changer.
Attempting to keep the thing still without floor anchors or gallons of readymix concrete was the first hurdle, I tried making the beadbreaker part first and realised quickly that there was some pretty hefty forces at work. As the wheel and tyre sit on the base itself I was hoping that just pushing the lever down would sort of clamp the whole thing down..nope. Holding a 5ft bar in the top to steady it was barely enough to wrestle the first side of tyre one off its bead. I was intending this to be 2 separate things, the beadbreaker and then the 'table' part, the idea being I would just clamp the latter in a vice. Nope again. Way too high once the wheel is sitting on there for that to be practical. This was very much trial and error so it's actually become 2 parts that slide together and by happy accident once the table is attached to the bench with braces and sat on top of the bead breaker bit it all suddenly becomes reasonably rigid. I'm thinking now the base could be better still if it was more of a cross shape, it would be easy to bolt on a couple of folding angle iron extension feet so when stored it will still fit snugly in a corner
The pole that you sort of spin around at the top when using it doubles as the clamp, the alloys are protected by a thin piece of ply underneath and plastic washer and rubber mat on the top. The pry bar has a nylon roller which runs against the wheel rim while in use and a spigot welded on the opposite side to guide the tyre bead over the rim
I found out that when refitting low profiles it's impossible to keep them pushed down out of the bead seating by hand so I came up with the arm that allows the business end of the bead breaker part to be used as you refit too. I just added an adjustable collar to it and you push down the tyre wall by sliding the bar and collar to upright under the channel part of the arm. You do have to release it to get the pry bar past it at the half way point and then replace it again once you get past it which can be a bit of a faff about, nevertheless it makes a massive difference to how easy it is to refit the tyre.
Photos should show enough if you feel like creating something similar plus you can refer to the parts list mentioned a few paragraphs up. If you are really desperate to know anything else there is always the comments box below.
