Tire question

[dougimes]

Split rims...

I picked up 750-16 tires at Evansville for my WC21.

a. Do tire service stores know how to deal with these 1/2 ton dodge wheels? Can they mount my tires?

b. Do people ever do this themselves, pry the ring off..... work the old tire off, put the new one on? It looks like a difficult thing to do.

any suggestions, stories will help

[M5tankdriver]

Good day sir! Nice meeting you at Evansville. There have been several threads on these rather dangerous wheels. Unfortunately I guess you have to be a paying member to use the advanced search feature. So just dig through all the past posts and you will find the answers.
Yes, people do it themselves. Did you get new tubes and flaps with the new tires?

[Paul Cook]

Truck and tractor tire shops...

Most tire shops that work on truck and tractor tires have the necessary safety cage and workmen who know how to mount tires on split ring rims.

I had a local tire shop that also helped me with a solid ring rim on my 1942 Ben Hur cargo trailer. The old tire guy worked on these trailers at Camp Hood in the 1940's.

We have a new tire shop that is not part of one of those chain stores selling "bling" and they do split ring rims but charge a bit more.

Stop at tire dealers that have tractors waiting instead of import "drifters".

[dougimes]

split rimes

Sound advise.

By the by, one of my rims has a little wobble. I took it to a rim straightener, a place called Rim Wizard. Looked at it with me, spun it, got some more people to look at it.

At the end, he concluded his equipment was not beefy enough to bend straighten out the rim.

[Hill, Bill E.]

Split rims...

I picked up 750-16 tires at Evansville for my WC21.

a. Do tire service stores know how to deal with these 1/2 ton dodge wheels? Can they mount my tires?

b. Do people ever do this themselves, pry the ring off..... work the old tire off, put the new one on? It looks like a difficult thing to do.

any suggestions, stories will help

Hard to find tire shops that will anymore, at least up here (I'm north of 'farm country')

I've done many of them by hand, both in the service with Duece and 1/2's and 5 tons, and on our PW's.

Helps to have the right tools.

The tire needs to be pounded down about 1 1/2 to 2" before trying to remove the ring. (The bead holds the ring tight)

You should put the gap of the split ring 180* from the valve stem when re assembling.

And you should use a cage when filling the tire, although there are other ways to do it. I have used heavy chain wrapped around the tire through the wheel in 2 places (loose enough for the tire to fill and not bind the chain) Not the safest, but it will keep the ring from flying if there are problems.

I also use a 'lock on' filler chuck, with a valve in the middle of the line. That way I'm 20' from the tire while filling it, and still have control of the air by means of the inline ball valve.

Another trick I learned in the service, is to inflate the tube, and then let it deflate before final filling. This gets out the folds/creases in the tube. (most of them, anyway)

The longer the tire's been on the wheel, the harder it usually is to remove. Needs lots of elbow grease!

[Blisters]

I use a truck/farm tractor/off-road equipment tire shop. $30 for dismount/remount, each. The guy dismounts a hard-as-wood military tire from a rusty rim in less then three minutes per tire. If I'm doing the Budd Safety rims (with the split ring), then I mount them myself. If I'm working with solid, not-split rings as on the older 20" rims, I pay the man to do it. It isn't worth spending a couple of hundred dollars on the proper duck-bill sledge hammer and two special spoon-tip prybars for me to struggle with all of it.

I was able to get a regular automotive tire shop to balance mine- maybe they had the deluxe adapter kit? I'm running 7.50-16 NDT tires.

The guy who balanced mine said all four rims were wobbly, so he marked them 1, 2, 3, & 4, with 1 being the straightest. He said to mount the tires #1 at the driver's front, #2 at the passenger front, #3 driver's rear, #4 passenger rear. Smoothed out the ride quite a lot.

I also get "bumpy" tiires after they sit for more than a week. The flat spots that develope go away after about 10 minutes of driving. These are new Firestones.

When I mount mine, I do the same as Bill above, with the additional safety margin of standing on the other side of a vehicle; ordinarily, I allow myself to get a minor injury rather than getting something broken, but one of these tires popping apart will not result in a minor injury. I also never let anyone stand around or watch, nor do I add air while any neighbors near me are in their yards (I live in a housing tract).

1941 WC-43 telephone installation truck