Tire mounting on a homemade tire changer - part 2: mounting

Now that the old tire has been removed from the wheel, we can start looking at putting on a new tire.

The tool for this job is the mounting side of the mount/demount bar:

Tire mounting on a homemade tire changer - part 1: dismounting

You might recall that I have a tire to change. Tire changing is something that can be done at home if you have the right tools. You can buy really expensive tire changers, or fairly cheap ones (wheel scratchers), but I elected to make my own out of (mostly) scrap steel.

Tire changing can be broken down into three steps: dismounting the old tire, mounting the new tire, and balancing the assembly. Today we cover dismounting and introduce some of the homemade tools.

The first thing we need to do is remove the valve core from the valve stem. There is a special tool to do this, but it’s ridiculously cheap:

Spare tires: all-wheel-drive and proper sizing

An incident I had a while back reminded me that my spare tire at the time didn’t match the four tires mounted on the car. Because I tend to buy all my tires used, I thought it might be a good idea to be prepared in case of another flat tire.

Broken wheel centre cap

I found a broken wheel centre cap on the Subaru a little while ago. I’m not sure how it got broken (I blame the last tire shop I visited) but I don’t think it would have stayed on much longer had I not noticed it when I did.

Make your own BEER!

I’ve never been able to afford to buy beer in the quantities and qualities I deserve, so a while back I started making it myself! I used to bottle it, but putting it into kegs is actually much easier (not to mention that it’s just way more awesome having beer on tap). This is all done in three easy steps over the course of three weeks.