[...top-posting repaired...]
Dean wrote:
....
Eric in North TX wrote:
....
... If it is like most tractors, the wheels become permanently
attached to the axle after a few years and you have to mount the tires
with the wheels still in place.

I had to go buy a wheel puller to get the back rims/tires off the
Murray Rider..

OK, I'll bite...

Why on earth for and how?

Never heard of such a thing on any tractor/riding mower from
'40's-vintage to present. Have had stuff from most everybody --
Ariens, Gravely. Snapper to JD, A-C, Farmall, IH, Case, ...

It could be a pita on some of the older larger farm tractor rear wheels
when they got to 38" and 40" rims owing to the wheel weights plus the
ballast weight in the tires themselves on the old straight axles before
redesigned to make the rims removable from the wheels or to design a
moving mechanism into the wheel hub, but that pretty much was a bygone
relic after the 50's and only really applicable to larger, row-crop
tractors w/ straight axles for adjustable tread width. Certainly for
nothing as small as 15" have I seen anything other than a standard rim
although light mowers or lawn tractors may only use 3 or 4 lug bolt
pattern instead of automotive 5 or maybe 6 on a pickup. You'd
certainly play the devil changing a tire on the inner dual while
leaving the outer wheels/rim/tire in place!

I'll grant I've never had Murray or Craftsman kind of stuff, so what
gives with it? (Sounds like yet another reason to not it it's really a
problem... )