- Thread starter Paul G
- Start date
Some of those manual one make quite a bit of money if they are quality old ones.
I've had couple of electric/air tyre changers.
First one was a swing arm, a quality Italian make, bought it cheap out of a small garage as it need a repair to one of the ali clamping arms. I converted to 1ph and changed loads of tyres on it. It did everything I needed until I got a car with 18" rims and it wouldn't clamp externally anything bigger than 17. Swing arms are good if you don't have much space.
I've now got a tilt arm Corghi which does up to 20". It's semi auto, once you've set the rim up the arm goes back to where you set it inbetween the remove/fit phases. This one was already 1ph and I'm still using now.
They can be a minefield, some of the top makes cost thousands when new and the parts remain expensive so be very wary buying one that doesn't work. The other thing is the consumables sometime they can be tricky to get(plastic inserts on the shoe)
Ideally spend a bit more on one that has been in a small garage or a car dealer as they won't have been abused as much. The biggest issue on ebay is finding one close by. Make sure you buy one that is complete and working if possible.
The convenience of doing them yourself is worth every penny. After I had cleaned my old up it made really good money on ebay and I only had to add £100 to buy the newer one.
Like many of these kind of tools when you've got one you realise how much effort you could have saved if you'd bought years a go
Just be aware you will become more popular
I've had couple of electric/air tyre changers.
First one was a swing arm, a quality Italian make, bought it cheap out of a small garage as it need a repair to one of the ali clamping arms. I converted to 1ph and changed loads of tyres on it. It did everything I needed until I got a car with 18" rims and it wouldn't clamp externally anything bigger than 17. Swing arms are good if you don't have much space.
I've now got a tilt arm Corghi which does up to 20". It's semi auto, once you've set the rim up the arm goes back to where you set it inbetween the remove/fit phases. This one was already 1ph and I'm still using now.
They can be a minefield, some of the top makes cost thousands when new and the parts remain expensive so be very wary buying one that doesn't work. The other thing is the consumables sometime they can be tricky to get(plastic inserts on the shoe)
Ideally spend a bit more on one that has been in a small garage or a car dealer as they won't have been abused as much. The biggest issue on ebay is finding one close by. Make sure you buy one that is complete and working if possible.
The convenience of doing them yourself is worth every penny. After I had cleaned my old up it made really good money on ebay and I only had to add £100 to buy the newer one.
Like many of these kind of tools when you've got one you realise how much effort you could have saved if you'd bought years a go
Just be aware you will become more popular
pedrobedro
Man at Matalan
- Messages
- 13,116
- Location
- CX near Chesterfield
The one round at the bike shop is pneumatic/electric and is a brilliant tool. It has a bead breaker and does car tyres as well. A friend has a manual one that bolt to the floor and it isn't too hard with the levers provided and you can stick an extender (a bit of pipe) on the breaker bar. Rim protector stops you from gouging alloys but steels are pretty tough.
pedrobedro
Man at Matalan
- Messages
- 13,116
- Location
- CX near Chesterfield
Shox Dr
Chief Engineer to Carlos Fandango
- Messages
- 18,010
- Location
- East Yorkshire
It's all well and good fitting your own tyres but don't you want to balance them as well?
Depends, I've fitted my own tyres to my bikes for yrs, and have only needed to have 2-3 balanced because of high speed vibration.
anto44
Member
- Messages
- 1,909
- Location
- ireland
On car tyres you should always balance them. On a bike there are no bushings between the suspension and chassis (frame) just bearings so if a wheel is out of balance you will feel it on the bike. On a car you have rubber bushings between suspension and chassis which can do a good job of masking quite a bit of wheel vibration but your wheel bearings will still be feeling it and out of balance wheels are a great way to kill bearings.
On the subject of tyre changers, a cheap air/elec tyre machine will do a perfect job until you get in to large diameters and low profiles. What diameter wheels do you think will be your max?
On the subject of tyre changers, a cheap air/elec tyre machine will do a perfect job until you get in to large diameters and low profiles. What diameter wheels do you think will be your max?
It's all well and good fitting your own tyres but don't you want to balance them as well
Yes, I have a balancer.
if you mean this type of tyre changer
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381741918010
I've used one to change 13" and 14" tyres down to 50% profile. I wouldn't want to do tyres that are lower profile or larger diameter. I have sometimes struggled to break the beads though with them.
the tyre bars that come with the cheap tyre changers can damage wheels, but you can buy ones with nylon rollers like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172752676763
I made my own as show in this thread, and I also do static wheel balancing too, on the sets I've balanced using this method havn't had issues with vibration afterwards.
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/fitting-and-balancing-your-own-tyres.58919/#post-721997
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381741918010
I've used one to change 13" and 14" tyres down to 50% profile. I wouldn't want to do tyres that are lower profile or larger diameter. I have sometimes struggled to break the beads though with them.
the tyre bars that come with the cheap tyre changers can damage wheels, but you can buy ones with nylon rollers like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172752676763
I made my own as show in this thread, and I also do static wheel balancing too, on the sets I've balanced using this method havn't had issues with vibration afterwards.
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/fitting-and-balancing-your-own-tyres.58919/#post-721997
I made a manual tyre changer and nylon faced bar about 10 years ago, but I ended up with a proper tyre machine and balancer, so I gave them to a mate, that lives a couple of hundred miles away and he still uses it, I also have a Marc parnes balancer, that I occasionally use, especially when I rebuild a wheel, to check balance before tyre fitting.
Paul G
Member
- Messages
- 932
A small group of err, enthusiasts drive and track MX5's including one thats supercharged and another that has loads of carbon replacement bits. I have joined "the gang" and between three of us we thought of the advantages of owning a tyre machine.
The default tyre is a Uniroyal Rainsport 3 and the default size is 195/50r15
My mk2.5 comes with 16's but I have bought a set of ROH 15's so I fit in with the rest and therefore can swop or mix & match as convenient.
It definitely won't be an under a £hundred type of manual machine but we don't want to spend too much either.
Thanks for the help so far.
Paul G
The default tyre is a Uniroyal Rainsport 3 and the default size is 195/50r15
My mk2.5 comes with 16's but I have bought a set of ROH 15's so I fit in with the rest and therefore can swop or mix & match as convenient.
It definitely won't be an under a £hundred type of manual machine but we don't want to spend too much either.
Thanks for the help so far.
Paul G
how do you find the rainsport 3 in the warm weather/hot track? ive only driven mine at Anglesea in November in the cod/wet and found them amazing. my mate swears by the Michelin for his mx5's.
I have one of the cheap and cheerful swing arm ebay specials and apart from the motor start capacitor failing ive not had any trouble with it. I mainly fit 40/45 profile tyres so it gets a good workout when in use.
I looked around for a decent secondhand one and came to the conclusion they were all clapped out/overpriced so paid the £600 or so for a new machine, I used to use a mates machine that was half knackered and it was so frustrating.
I have one of the cheap and cheerful swing arm ebay specials and apart from the motor start capacitor failing ive not had any trouble with it. I mainly fit 40/45 profile tyres so it gets a good workout when in use.
I looked around for a decent secondhand one and came to the conclusion they were all clapped out/overpriced so paid the £600 or so for a new machine, I used to use a mates machine that was half knackered and it was so frustrating.
I quite like Rainsports, the first ones I had on a Volvo T5 were Rainsport2 and they were very good. The next batch I had were horrible, same size,same car. They wore unevenly and were noisy. I have since had Rainsport 3 and again very good. I did find the sidewalls were quite soft though and they were easily damaged, I've since gone to Avon ZX7 which have coped very well with rough rural roads.
