Seating a Car or Trailer Tire Bead Using a Bicycle Tube

I have long changed my own tires, by hand in a yard or driveway, using tire irons and busted knuckles. I think I first did it when I was about 14 years old, and got my first car. And back in the tube days, seating a bead was of course not an issue... the tube did the work for you.

Tubeless tires are a bit more problematic of course, as the bead of the tire has to make complete contact around both sides of the wheel rim, or all the air gets out before the bead is snapped up on that rim. But it often works pretty well to put a rope or strap around the tire, and turn it with a stick (Spanish Windless). This is best with used tires, as they have already been under pressure on a rim, and so have a "memory" which places the bead closer to the rim.

But new tires are often a real problem, as they usually come out of the mold with the bead too far from where the rim is. I admit I have mounted some tires in the past, and then needed to cry "uncle", and take the tire down to a garage, and have it beaded for me. That sort of defeats the purpose of doing this at home in the first place (well, maybe not considering the stupid tire mounting laws, and liabilities, which sometimes restrict the mounting of single, used tires on existing rims. Coming in for a bead seating has, so far, been possible though).

There are many other methods of seating a bead, such as the air tank blaster thingy... but they cost like $60, and I don't do this all that much. So then I have another cumbersome tool to deal with, mostly sitting around. Others have had luck using an explosive gas... I think starter fluid... sprayed in and lit. That seems very dangerous, and I just never wanted to try it.

There seem to be other gizmos which pull the bead up, and so on. I had wondered, though, at different things that might fill the air gap temporarily, to allow air to stay in the tire and seat the bead, and wondered if wrapping a bicycle tube around the rim would work. So I did a youtube search, and lo-and-behold that is a tried and proven method. Wish I thought of it first! No matter... at least I wanted to add my own, first experience with this method, to help get the word out...

As you can see, it is simple, cheap, and very easy to do. I intend on keeping a small selection of bike tubes with my tire irons. I'll remove them from discarded bikes, so that I don't have to buy them. And "damn"... I'm a recovering hoarder, and now I think of all those bikes and wheels I tossed into dumpsters the last few years....

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