On 02/19/2018 09:58 PM, ultred ragnusen wrote:
Jesus. That's battle gear for heaven's sake!

So I'm told. I had to make a personal appearance at the SSI office a
couple of weeks ago. The security guard said "You can bring in a small
knife. That's a big knife.' so out to the car I went.

This is what I consider to be a typical pocket knife.
https://media.midwayusa.com/producti...365/365933.jpg

I've got one of those I found by the side of the road. I guess it's the
Officer' model with the toothpick, tweezers, and other strange stuff. I
never carried it. This is Montana; we subscribe to the Crocodile Dundee
School of Knives.

The Harbor Freight tire mounting tool has an accessory for mounting
motorcycle tires, but the HF static bubble balancer does not. AFAIK, most
people statically balance motorcycle tires using a horizontal freely
spinning bar, do they not?

Yes. I'll probably pick one up and see if it makes any difference the
next time around. Knobbies give you plenty of practice. 5K on the rear
is doing good.

I did bike tires in the 80s, before they were typically as fat as they are
now (especially the rears), where it wasn't hard in the olden days, with a
good tire iron and three hands.

I haven't used it yet but I picked one of these up:

https://www.amazon.com/Motion-Pro-08.../dp/B0035UDHZ2

The DR is 4.75 x 17 for the rear and 3.00 x 21 for the front although
I've run 5.10 on the rear. They're started to go to the 120/90 stuff for
knobbies but I'm used to the older sizing.

I find that car tires are easiest on the import economy vehicles, and
almost as easy on the European sport vehicles, but the sidewall and larger
profile makes SUVs harder (at least the ones I've done), where I just
ass-u-me that truck tires would be even worse.

BIG tools Breaking the beads with a sledge hammer, or rather
something like a cross head splitting maul is common.

My first DIY attempt was with a '51 Chevy. iirc, the owners manual had
an illustration of breaking the bead by putting the bumper jack on it.
All I managed to do was jack the car up.
I've seen every redneck method of breaking a bead that YouTube can fester,
where the purpose-built HF bead breaker is the tool of choice for the home
owner. https://youtu.be/MXWb4q_DljE

Back in the '60s Harbor Freight and Chinese stuff was well in the
future. Real tools cost real money. The cellar had a door through a
poured concrete wall that was sturdy. You could do strange stuff with a
scissors jack. You could also launch stuff when you were trying to
compress the coil springs on your Healey... I was literally a shade
tree mechanic. There was a handy maple with a branch that was just right
for pulling engines. Much ambition, little money, get 'er done.




The main flaw of that bead breaker is that they try to limit the diameter
of the wheels you can break the bead on by limiting the overall length of
the teardrop-shaped base - so you have to "extend" the base by putting a
board over it and then the wheel on top of that board.

The bead breaker attachment that comes standard with the HF tire mounting
tool works fine on the import economy vehicles, and even works on the
European sports cars, but it fails miserably (it bends out of shape) on the
SUV tires I've tried.