Harbor Freight Tire Changer works...kind of

I once had a bead breaker that was portable, didn't need to be bolted down. It had a platform with a rim catcher. A spoon bolted to a lever worked well. a couple tire irons removed the bead.

It worked well on the older tires and narrow rims.

Lots of that type can be found on the internet.

As RedGT said, my tire guy is cheap and I don't change tires much anymore.

In reply to vazbmw:

Thanks for the video, good job. Are you up for another one ?

I was thinking that with this unit it may be easier to use a third spoon (iron) and do the bite and move a bit , take another bite method. At first you would think this would take longer and more effort, but with the lack of spin-ability, it might end up being easier.

Other thoughts, how about an old rotor with studs bolted to the rotor, dropped on the unit before the rim to hold it ? Yes you would need one for each bolt pattern, but if you have a long term car that you do a lot of tires for you surly have some old rotors around.

Thanks again for the vid !

LOL! If I can get a guy to do my tire...I would do that too In reply to RedGT:

Bumping this thread as I'm thinking about getting one of the HF tire changers.  Anyone have any experiences to share?

I'm also looking into some of the add-ons that use a Hunter duck-bill.  Note, the add-ons all cost more than the base tool - some as much a 9X more!

Huckleberry said:

vazbmw wrote: I plan on making parts for the Harbor Freight version. The Harbor Freight version is a good start for a changer...better than building from scratch, but it will need mods to work. The long pry bar is not strong enough, neither is the foot used to break the bead. So, I will be making better versions of those parts In reply to wae:

I have the motorcycle adapter and the same is true. It's a good start but I had to mod it pretty heavily before using it at all.

I bolted mine to a sheet of OSB so when I was creating torque I was standing on it and not rotating the whole thing.

I used a cutting board and cut it up to make the rim clamps "nice wheel" safe.

And I made a new bar from 1.0x.125 square tubing and put a PTFE ball tip on one end and a flat angled strip on the other for dismount and mount work. The lathe in the background was helpful for making that bit.

It makes quick work of bike tires now - but I should give it a try on a 17" Hoosier R7 and see if it can be done. Those things make guys with real tire machines hate me so I'm guessing it's not going to be easy.

Any more pics of the nylon tipped bar, and how the tip threads into the bar?  I need to give that a try with my manual changer.

The NoMar bar has a similar idea, but its quite expensive and the tips are not cheap:

https://www.nomartirechanger.com/tc-mdbar.html