Breaking the rear tire bead

[TeabagInsurance]

I'm doing my first tire change and figured I would do it at home for the experience and I cannot break the rear tire bead for the life of me. The front was easy (though I pinched the tube upon fitting the new tire on - d'oh). I have a couple of standard stainless steel tire levers and they couldn't dent it. I read of several people literally backing their car over the tire (several shop techs even recommended trying this) and thought I would give that a try. I was very careful to not back over the rim. That didn't work either. I got like 1/4" from the rim and literally jumped on the other end of the tire and it wouldn't break. What the crap! Yes, the valve core has been removed.

 

I don't have a Motion Pro bead breaker tool or the like. Hard to justify paying $80~ for such a simple tool, and if backing the car over it didn't work, I'm now skeptical that the tool would either.

 

Any other suggestions before I take it into a shop to have them do it?

[katana]

I ended up taking it to a shop.  Life is too short to struggle.

[Ray Ride4life]

I have the Bead Pro for on the way and used them at home before i got myself a tyre device (it's manual so i don't call it a "machine") but for putting the tyre back on i still use the Bead Pro. I had a few pinch plats with other irons but never with the Bead Pro ones.
I think it's money well spend.

[Rider 101]

A couple of Irwin quick clamps - the good ones. A bit of brute strength and stupidity. I did mine like that in about 5 minutes. Once the bead starts to go it goes quick.

Are you replacing the tube? If so let the air out and go for a quick ride. 

When the tyre is warm it is easier to work with.

Ballard's pattern tyre levers are the best. 2 or three and they are super compact. If you want them just for the garage get a couple of Michelin pattern 15"

I did 2 x 17"(tubes not mine ) on the  trail a week ago.

 

To help prevent pinch flats put a heap of talc in the carcass, slightly inflate the tube then fit in the carcass.

I am sure there would be a bunch of youtube clips to check out.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Rider 101

[BikeBrother]

@TeabagInsurance do you have a centerstand? If yes, put your bike on centerstand, put kickstand out, put wheel under kickstand and pull the bike towards you, balancing on centerstand and pushing down tyre with kickstand. It works for me. There must be youtube vids somewhere.

[electric_monk]

You're bound to have a friend with a bike....use the sidestand from their bike. The small footprint of the sidestand makes it easy to put the pressure at exactly the right point.

[rumrum]

I have the motion pro leavers. They work great but on these bigger bikes you need to work your way around the rim before it will pop. Definitely a warm tyre is allot easier to work with than a cold one just leave it out in the sun for a while if possible.

 

[mpb1]

7 hours ago, BikeBrother said:

@TeabagInsurance do you have a centerstand? If yes, put your bike on centerstand, put kickstand out, put wheel under kickstand and pull the bike towards you, balancing on centerstand and pushing down tyre with kickstand. It works for me. There must be youtube vids somewhere.

We tried that with my tire, with a loaded Tracer 900.  It wouldn't get the tire off without a 190lb dude sitting on top of that too.  My opinion is the setup is not off-road or adventure worthy.  I went to a different tire, 140/80-18 TKC80s load on/off the rim like nothing.

[Liquidape]

The key to breaking the bead the first time is spray lube and patience. Get the lever between the tire and rim, create as much of a gap as you can and spray some lube in the gap. Move a few inches to either side, repeat the process. Go back and forth between these two spots spraying a bit of lube each time until it breaks free. 
 

Once you break the bead once on the rear tire it’s no longer that hard to break. I think the factory mounts the tires dry so there is a huge amount of stiction between the dry tire and rim the first time you try to break the bead. 

[S.Ga.Rider]

I used my rabaconda with a lot of spray lube and had to keep going around the tire a few times until it broke loose. Its definitely a beast.

[jdub53]

I had to resort to my hydraulic press to break the rear OEM Pirelli bead - I swear it was glued on.

 

 

First time my normal bead breaker set-up got its butt kicked in over 70 tire changes.

 

[Husafreak]

Saw this:

 

[TeabagInsurance]

On 8/26/2022 at 9:14 PM, Hogan said:

I have a Tyrepliers bead breaker and it was a tough bead even with it.

http://www2.tyrepliers.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=53

I think it would be tougher with the motion pro bead breaker.

 

I'm pretty sure driving over it with your car will work, but I'd be careful about driving over the rim and destroying it.

 

There are better methods such as using a car bottle jack under the edge of a heavy/immovable object like a truck or house.

If you happen to have had a hydraulic press then that would also do the trick.

There is also the method of using 2x4 lengths of wood or similar, under the workbench in the same way a regular mechanical bead breaker works.

There are tools like the Tyrepliers and Motion Pro offerings, also the old school slide hammer bead breaker.

Really all you are doing is pushing on the tyre with a fair amount of force. How you achieve that is up to your imagination.

 

If you plan on fixing tyres in the field then you are going to need some way of breaking the bead.

The Motion Pro bead breaker also doubles as two levers so for 80 bucks that is still a pretty cool and compact tool to have.

However the Motion Pro tool is actually just doing the three tyre lever trick. If you already have two tyre levers then you are only one lever away from having an equivalent tool.

Personally I carry three levers. The DRC ones that also have a ring spanner end for undoing the wheel nuts. 27mm for the rear, and a 19mm for the front in conjunction with a short length of 19mm hex bar.

The intent originally was to learn how to do it so I can do it on the trail. Now I'm questioning whether I care enough. I'm sure if/when I get a flat on the trail, I will wish I had a tool to use. Those tyepliers look cool, but also seem bulky, and only work on up to 19" rims, so I'm not particularly keen on that. Also quite pricey. If I knew that it would be doable with the Motion Pro tool, or something else more portable and cheaper, I would be happy to invest in that.

 

I'm a fan of those tools that have the 27mm socket for the rear and 19mm allen head for the front to remove the wheels as well. I don't have much extra spending money lately, so I haven't splurged on a set yet, but it's in the plans for the future.

 

Anyways... as an update! I did end up breaking the bead using a hydraulic jack, 2x4, and the frame on the bottom of my car. Once I broke it initially, it was still a PITA to break the other side too. I thought it would have come easily, but I backed onto the tire to break the other side. The bad news is I spent 2 hours to fit the new rear tire on, scuffed up the rim pretty badly, and managed to get a small rock inside the tire when I fit it on. Tube was holding air initially, but as I started to fill it, the small rock inside the tire punctured the tube. I said $%&^ it and took it to a shop.

On 8/26/2022 at 8:37 PM, katana said:

I ended up taking it to a shop.  Life is too short to struggle.

I should have just done this initially. Now I know the pain. 3 pinched tubes, two scuffed rims, and 8 hours of wasted time. I fought the law tire gods and lost.

 

On 8/27/2022 at 12:19 AM, BikeBrother said:

@TeabagInsurance do you have a centerstand? If yes, put your bike on centerstand, put kickstand out, put wheel under kickstand and pull the bike towards you, balancing on centerstand and pushing down tyre with kickstand. It works for me. There must be youtube vids somewhere.

I don't have a center stand, but I do have a hydraulic jack for motorcycles. Unfortunately the bike was suspended by it already, with the lever side on the left of the bike, blocking the kickstand, so I couldn't use it to lower the bike onto the kickstand haha. Good idea for next time though!

 

On 8/27/2022 at 8:28 AM, Liquidape said:

The key to breaking the bead the first time is spray lube and patience. Get the lever between the tire and rim, create as much of a gap as you can and spray some lube in the gap. Move a few inches to either side, repeat the process. Go back and forth between these two spots spraying a bit of lube each time until it breaks free. 
 

Once you break the bead once on the rear tire it’s no longer that hard to break. I think the factory mounts the tires dry so there is a huge amount of stiction between the dry tire and rim the first time you try to break the bead. 

I'm hoping that's true about the bead being extra sealed from the factory. Good lord it was tough. I did use lots of lube. I couldn't even wedge my tire levers between the tire and rim without the bead being broken. There was enough room when I ran it over with the car, but then my car wheels were unfortunately in the way, so I couldn't try to work it from there.

[TeabagInsurance]

Thanks for the comments all! Sorry for the late reply, been a busy few days!

 

Was hoping that the shop would have been able to finish the tires by the end of the day yesterday so I could go riding today, but no such luck. Will have to pick up the wheels at the end of the week when I get back into town from work!

 

I think in the future I will either splurge on a Motion Pro bead breaker or use another bike's kickstand to lean onto it and break it, and hope the bead isn't as hard to break as the factory had left it sealed. I had pinched a few tubes, but I'll also invest in some patch kits.

[TeabagInsurance]

6 hours ago, Hogan said:

I probably should have mentioned that they were actually designed for 4wd use, which is why I originally bought them.

 

And I just remembered the same company makes a motorcycle bead breaker:

http://www2.tyrepliers.com.au/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=66

Basically it's just a c-clamp, but shaped better for the job.

Oh, very cool! Thanks for sharing.

[TimmyTheHog]

if you got C-lamp and some peices of wood, it will work wonder
 

Edit: probably should finish reading first before posting as I saw C-lamps were mentioned...hah...

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by TimmyTheHog

[winddown]

What a drama!  I see why guys fit the narrower tires now. 

[Hibobb]

My bike started feeling odd on some grave trails I was on, I got a rear flat. I was about three miles from my truck. Road it back (slowly). It never came off the bead. Tire and rim were fine. Sometimes it is handy to have the tire stuck tight to the rim!!

[JRS700]

I had a flat on the trail last week. We tried to break the bead with everything I had with no luck. We wound up using my buddy's kickstand. It is a chore getting a heavy bike leaned over far enough to get the kickstand on the bead.

 

I had a new tire so I decided to replace the old with tools for the trail. I do have a tire machine that I used on the stock tires. I wound up using a C-clamp coming through the spokes to get on the bead. It worked OK, but still took a lot of work to break the bead. It was a 6" C-clamp and it weighs 2.5 lbs. A little heavy to carry, but it does work well.

[Black99S]

FFS. Buy MotionPro bead breakers and  some DRC  bead cream. Put the bead breakers in a piece of bicycle inner tube and zip- tie them to your frame or bash plate.

Used correctly, I’ve never failed to break a tire bead on any brand bike, ever.