Once the top bead was broken (which is far easier than the bottom bead once you nail down the bead-breaking tool), I easily removed the top bead from the wheel on the tire changer tool.įor reference, for someone doing this in the future, the tool goes with the step-side up, like this: So I moved the extension out to just cover the last few inches of the tip of the tool base: It took me a couple of tries to realize that the extension needs to only be on the tapered end because you need the little welded-in chock that holds the wheel close to the vertical stem of the bead breaker. The HF bead breaker needs to be an inch or three longer, so I grabbed whatever was handy to extend the length of the tapered end: I worked my way around the edges, to ensure the entire inside bead was loose:įlipping the 15-inch tire to the front side, a design flaw in the bead breaker showed up which was that the rim is a different diameter which doesn't touch the front of the bead breaker (under the tire) which causes the bead breaker to lift up, making it useless. Just in case it was possible, I tried both at once, but you need two people if it's gonna stand a chance of working.Įven with the newer bead breaker, it's still very difficult to break these Optimo beads:įinally, I was able to get the back bead broken (which is reputedly the hardest one): Here you see the old and new bead breakers for size comparison: The wood fell out and the metal starting bending again, so I broke out the HF Pittsburgh Bead Breaker item# 92961 To get back to the mounting and balancing so that others can benefit who want to do their own mounting and balancing at home, I mounted and balanced another wheel last night where I continued to learn that the Harbor Freight equipment is stressed to its max by these Optimo tires, even with the block of wood shoring up the breaker arm, and a longer pipe for leverage: I've done now two passenger tires for a sedan, and both were a breeze.īut breaking the bead on these Optimos is not something you want to do in front of polite company, as your vocabulary will not be genteel during the process.
#Beadtool 4 forum how to#
However, if the weights were put on (or left on) by the last installer, then they seem to be improperly mounted.īut my point is that knowing how to do something allows you to tell if someone else is doing that job correctly.Īpparently the weight on the right in the photo below (which was on the inside of the rim) is the wrong type, so, we know this wheel wasn't balanced by the book (which fits my assessment that almost no tire is ever mounted and balanced correctly when taken to a tire shop). To that end, I only have a single Toyota wheel in my possession, which has two very different looking wheel weights on them, and, from the looks of them, they could even be of two different ages (although it could just be that the front weight looks older because of the additional curb wear and tear). So the great thing about knowing something is that you can tell when someone else is telling a fib. I used to work in a fish store when I was in high school on a work permit, and I learned a LOT about the fibs fish stores tell their customers (e.g., we would slice haddock in half and sell the thick half as scrod and the thin half as cod at two different prices).
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