Tire Removal - Split Rims

[SHOOTER68]

And how many beers were you guys soaked with?

[brute4c]

This was a scheduled tech session that started right after trail riding for the day and was supposed to be done by dinner time...we ran waaaay late..

Ask Kaiser715 about beer or any alcohol...it was a dry area and none of us knew it going in so there was nada...I asked Kaiser715 if he was up for going to town to get some beer one evening...he was gone 2 hours and came back with the bad news...

[Barrman]

I had to pull a tire apart last night, so I took pictures thinking of this thread.

Here is the tire/rim all together with a duck billed hammer sitting on top. I took the picture while I was waiting for all the air to leave through the removed valve core:


Then I walked around the tire hitting the bead with the hammer, got out my tire tools and pride the ring up. This picture shows my foot prints on the tire and the tire tool in the first slot you can't see until the ring is moved out some:


I haven't worked with a tire this small in a year or so and forgot about how helpfull it is on these small things to support the can from the bottom. This picture shows a tire tool in the second slot and a 15" regular tubeless rim underneath the can. Supporting the can allows the tire to fall away from the lock ring some. This makes it easier to pry it out:


Once the second slot has been used, the ring just pulled out with a good yank. This tire hasn't been apart in more than two years and it took me maybe 10 minutes from start to finish including the picture taking. I didn't take a picture of it, but I had to turn it over and walk the hammer around the back side to get the can out.

Once the tube was out I found a little bitty pin hole that only showed up in water with the tube very full of air. I couldn't find anything on the inside of the tire to cause it, so it must have been a pinch or something. Once I had the tube and flap back inside the tire, I slobbered on some tire lube cream. this is something I started doing with the M35 tires and have found it really helps the next time it has to come apart.

Of course, as soon as I started doing this Colton decided he should work on a flat bicycle tire at the same time in the same part of the floor as me. That made the patch and put back together time a lot longer than it should have been. but, both the M715 and the bike still have air in them this morning so something must have been right.

[Barrman]

Oh, I put the XZL tires on without paying attention to where the split in the ring and the valve stem were. I have learned since then that they should be 180 degrees apart. So, don't put it together like it is in the pictures above.

Several reasons for this. It is real easy to mess up the valve stem with the hammer, the valve stem doesn't let the bead fall down very far to start the ring out and if you force the bead down, it could bend or break the valve stem.

[rboltz]

Finally loaded the wheel in the tractor bucket and headed across country to my neighbor, who has a tire machine. His air operated machine really struggled breaking the bead, bit by bit. After we got that busted loose, we tried and tried to get the ring loose. No luck as it's rusted fast. Anyone have any suggestions or is it time to chuck the wheel? I may use my sawzall and cut the tire off and try again but shes really on there.

[Barrman]

I would say you don't have the bead down far enough yet. The first one is always the hardest. At least it was for me.

[randyscycle]

Be sure that the tire is all the way off the lock ring. It probably sits a good 2 inches below the tire sidewall, so you'll need to push the bead down that far.

[Binford]

This is exactly why our split rim wheel design is really quite safe to use. Of course due caution is most definitely required during assembly/disassembly.

[rboltz]

I cut the tire off the rim and still can't budge the lock ring. It's not rusty on the surface but must be 40 years of rust underneath.

[DAVEJ]

Did you cut the wire bead and remove that also? If the bead is still there the lock ring is still locked.