Seating a tire bead, GRM Style....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx8ezESUofo

That is cool! I know how the wheel barrel tire is going on next time, and it doesn't involve soap and water.

I've done that before, it's FUN! Amazing some of the things my brazilian father knows how to do!

Tell those of us with crappy puters that wont play youtube how it is done please. Damn, I gotta get a new puter

it's the old flammable bead seat..

Hairspray works well.

as does brake cleaner

or butane, spray the inside and around the bead with something flammable, light, pop and bead is seated. check pressure, you may need to add or rarely reduce pressure.

ps watch your fingers

carb cleaner. Works well as a hornet spray too. Damn versitile stuff to have around.

YMMV:

My dad used to run 10 commercial tire trucks out of his Goodyear stores. A can of ether on a truck was grounds for firing. Reason why was my dad saw a guy get blown up doing that trick to a 10R20. The tire/rim was leaning up again the truck, the guy hosed it with ether and tossed a match. Between the explosion and the rim they aren't quite sure what happened, but the guy was beyond dead pretty much instantly. My guess is he just hosed the crap out of the tire with ether and didn't realize it was so loaded. He also might not have had the rim spun down completely on the tire. So be careful when doing that trick on big tires with lots of volume.

While growing up in my dad's shop I saw a 2-piece rim let go once, holy crap that was loud. The tire changer was airing it up and I guess the bead lock was fatigued. When the bead seated, the tire stayed on the ground but the rim flew at least 50 ft up. They called those old 2-piece truck rims "widow makers" and most of the guys wouldn't touch them.

EastCoastMojo wrote: carb cleaner. Works well as a hornet spray too. Damn versitile stuff to have around.

We use carb cleaner on our weapons, that stuff destroys carbon.

lol did you guys see this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-nt48fb6Q&feature=related

I've seen a similar one from Japan where a dude did the stretch tire thing on a deep dish oldschool wheel. Pretty neat.

Hell--I might have posted it here at one point.

oh the fun things you can do with flammables.

once we had a plastic 55 gallon drum, we placed an air hose in one hole, and hosed about 20 seconds of brake cleaner into the drum, then a line of it down the drum and across the floor, then lit the line. it flamed up the barrel, and when it got to the open hole, it was like a jet fighter had been lit off inside the building. humorous stuff.

slefain wrote: YMMV: My dad used to run 10 commercial tire trucks out of his Goodyear stores. A can of ether on a truck was grounds for firing. Reason why was my dad saw a guy get blown up doing that trick to a 10R20. The tire/rim was leaning up again the truck, the guy hosed it with ether and tossed a match. Between the explosion and the rim they aren't quite sure what happened, but the guy was beyond dead pretty much instantly. My guess is he just hosed the crap out of the tire with ether and didn't realize it was so loaded. He also might not have had the rim spun down completely on the tire. So be careful when doing that trick on big tires with lots of volume. While growing up in my dad's shop I saw a 2-piece rim let go once, holy crap that was loud. The tire changer was airing it up and I guess the bead lock was fatigued. When the bead seated, the tire stayed on the ground but the rim flew at least 50 ft up. They called those old 2-piece truck rims "widow makers" and most of the guys wouldn't touch them.

I don't think it's recommended that you do this on a regular occasion but if you are in a bind, it's worth using something that is not ultra-flammable like "ether." WD-40, brake cleaner, carb cleaner, etc pretty much burn up in an instant and enough to do that job.

Corvette run flats and Honda Odyssey pax tires are in the same boat as far as seating the bead.......not fun

Did this to a set of tires just last week. Worked quite well :)

We've tried this with no luck. Maybe we just weren't using enough flame juice?

Idunno...

used this many times at work with great results.

One tip: tell any other techs standing around not to accidently press the air pedal down all the way. Brake cleaner + match + gobs of air = huge fireball and a tech with no eyebrows. (not me)

True story.

ClemSparks wrote: We've tried this with no luck. Maybe we just weren't using enough flame juice? Idunno...

Trick for me was getting one side to seal up decently on one side. I found my specific set of wheels liked to be face down and that would be the best side for me to then jump on the tire and get a little seal. Spray some brake fluid in there and match and whump!. Only lost a little hair on my hand during the first attempted on the non-sealing side :p

slefain wrote: While growing up in my dad's shop I saw a 2-piece rim let go once, holy crap that was loud. The tire changer was airing it up and I guess the bead lock was fatigued. When the bead seated, the tire stayed on the ground but the rim flew at least 50 ft up. They called those old 2-piece truck rims "widow makers" and most of the guys wouldn't touch them.

When I worked with the old two-piece rims we had a "cage" to put the wheels in when inflating them. It was outside the back door of the shop and we had an air hose we could operate from inside the building.

My nephew does truck tire service now. He has a small air tank with a wide flat nozzle on it to use for bead seating. But sometimes he still resorts to the starting fluid method if the air tank doesn't work.

I guess our problem has been getting the "poof" effect. We tried it with ether and it really just kinda burned off slowly, instead of an explosion.

Not sure why.

I thought about filling it up with an unlit propane torch (using gas instead of vapor/liquid like brake cleaner or starter fluid)...

Clem

When I worked with the old two-piece rims we had a "cage" to put the wheels in when inflating them. It was outside the back door of the shop and we had an air hose we could operate from inside the building.

You may notice all 16" tires STILL have a notice stamped on them: "USE ON 16" RIMS ONLY" This is from when the Ford 16.5 wheels were prevalent (are there many around now?) and I guess too many folks were trying to put 16" tires on them. Won't work.

Hennessey (the tire equipment manufacturer, not Jill) had a video called "Read-Inspect-Mount" (RIM, get it?) where they shot tire/rim assemblies into the air to dramatize what they were capable of.

mel_horn wrote:

When I worked with the old two-piece rims we had a "cage" to put the wheels in when inflating them. It was outside the back door of the shop and we had an air hose we could operate from inside the building.

You may notice all 16" tires STILL have a notice stamped on them: "USE ON 16" RIMS ONLY" This is from when the Ford 16.5 wheels were prevalent (are there many around now?) and I guess too many folks were trying to put 16" tires on them. Won't work. Hennessey (the tire equipment manufacturer, not Jill) had a video called "Read-Inspect-Mount" (RIM, get it?) where they shot tire/rim assemblies into the air to dramatize what they were capable of.

Man I remember that whole fiasco. One of the service managers took a worn out 16" tire and mounted it on a 16.5" rim just to show the guys in the shop how easy a mistake it was to make. Once you spin the tire down on the rim it looked fine. He didn't air it up but he made his point. It pretty much got to the point where any truck with 16" wheels coming in the door got an extra close look at the rim size. A tape measure sat on the tire machine just for that purpose.

Side story: one of the techs had an erector set of hardware in his arm, right in the middle of his forearm. I finally asked him what happened, totally expecting some manly crazy story. Nope, turns out he was changing a 2-piece golf cart tire and didn't bother airing it down before zipping the rim bolts out with an air gun. When the last rim bolt came loose the rim blew apart, folding his arm neatly in half at the forearm. He admits it was stupid but at the time after doing truck tires all day he figured what harm could an itty bitty tire do.