Princess Auto / Harbor Freight Tire Changer
Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2022 8:30 pm
Years ago, my dad bought one of these manual tire changers:
https://www.princessauto.com/en/4-to-16 ... 0008741464 It's a pretty crude device; it's more or less a stand on which your wheel is held. Then, you use a prybar to work the tire on/off. The unit must be fixed to the floor. It includes a bead-breaker, which also needs improvement (too much play in the pivots and cheap feeling).
Using it as-is is a recipe for scratched wheels, so it didn't see much use.
My dad doesn't have a good place for it, I have a bunch of room in the basement of my house, so I inherited this tool. It would be the perfect complement to my wheel balancer.
The first order of business was to buy a duckbill conversion kit from ebay:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/373624493594 The duckbill is the specially-shaped piece of plastic that guides the rubber bead on/off the rim. When you look at a duckbill the right way (especially a metal one), it looks like a duck. Duckbills are used on commercial tire changing machines.
In the above photo, we see a metal cruciform shape that is used to clamp down the wheel. Not very wheel-friendly...
This is my new wheel mounting solution: I drilled and tapped these wheel patterns into the 1/2" steel plate:
5 x 100mm
5 x 4.5"
5 x 5.5"
The wheels shall be secured using BMW lug bolts. I'll need adapters for other lug patterns.
I stiffened the legs by welding them to each other, and welding to the base plate. Originally, the legs were bolted on. Further stiffening will be done.
Originally, the duckbill arm just slipped over the center post of the tire changer, with a bunch of play.
I made plastic bushings that fit into each end of the duckbill arm: I'll be making a new center shaft to support the duckbill arm bushings.
I thought that a long handle might be useful to rotate the duckbill arm, so I bought a piece of steel square tubing. It was a little bit too big to slide into the duckbill arm, so I shaved some material from the tube. The tube still has enough wall thickness to work. ********************************************************************************
The build is obviously not finished yet... I'll make updates as I progress.
I ordered tires (coming in a few days) for my fancy Fiero wheels, so I'll need to finish this tool before I can mount them. Then, I'll need to buy an air compressor before I can seat the beads... which is a whole other project!
I'm not in a particular rush to get the wheels/tires on the car ASAP; it only makes sense to phase in the new wheels/tires at the same time as the first series of suspension mods.
https://www.princessauto.com/en/4-to-16 ... 0008741464 It's a pretty crude device; it's more or less a stand on which your wheel is held. Then, you use a prybar to work the tire on/off. The unit must be fixed to the floor. It includes a bead-breaker, which also needs improvement (too much play in the pivots and cheap feeling).
Using it as-is is a recipe for scratched wheels, so it didn't see much use.
My dad doesn't have a good place for it, I have a bunch of room in the basement of my house, so I inherited this tool. It would be the perfect complement to my wheel balancer.
The first order of business was to buy a duckbill conversion kit from ebay:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/373624493594 The duckbill is the specially-shaped piece of plastic that guides the rubber bead on/off the rim. When you look at a duckbill the right way (especially a metal one), it looks like a duck. Duckbills are used on commercial tire changing machines.
In the above photo, we see a metal cruciform shape that is used to clamp down the wheel. Not very wheel-friendly...
This is my new wheel mounting solution: I drilled and tapped these wheel patterns into the 1/2" steel plate:
5 x 100mm
5 x 4.5"
5 x 5.5"
The wheels shall be secured using BMW lug bolts. I'll need adapters for other lug patterns.
I stiffened the legs by welding them to each other, and welding to the base plate. Originally, the legs were bolted on. Further stiffening will be done.
Originally, the duckbill arm just slipped over the center post of the tire changer, with a bunch of play.
I made plastic bushings that fit into each end of the duckbill arm: I'll be making a new center shaft to support the duckbill arm bushings.
I thought that a long handle might be useful to rotate the duckbill arm, so I bought a piece of steel square tubing. It was a little bit too big to slide into the duckbill arm, so I shaved some material from the tube. The tube still has enough wall thickness to work. ********************************************************************************
The build is obviously not finished yet... I'll make updates as I progress.
I ordered tires (coming in a few days) for my fancy Fiero wheels, so I'll need to finish this tool before I can mount them. Then, I'll need to buy an air compressor before I can seat the beads... which is a whole other project!
I'm not in a particular rush to get the wheels/tires on the car ASAP; it only makes sense to phase in the new wheels/tires at the same time as the first series of suspension mods.