How to remove an 18 year old rock hard tire

[Igofar]

When it’s past midnight, your exhausted, the old OEM Bridgestone tire is as hard as wood, and you can’t even force your motion pro tire spoons between the rim and tire….
Sometimes you just have to think outside the box

 

[Obo]

It always seemed more logical to me to remove an old tire by cutting it off, assuming you can do so without damaging the rim.

 

[Terminator2]

Sign me up. I'm over it, trying to remove/install ST tires. I had a meeting with Motion Pro last year regarding their tire irons. Their company is about 12 miles from my house. Great customer service. I have two sets now..........and still can't remove a tire or install one. Then again, I failed the Nasa Space Program too. Sooooo, lol.

 

[Uncle Phil]

When it’s past midnight, your exhausted, the old OEM Bridgestone tire is as hard as wood, and you can’t even force your motion pro tire spoons between the rim and tire….
Sometimes you just have to think outside the box

Curious - What did you use to cut it?

 

[Igofar]

Box cutter and a dead blow mallet.
Not long enough to damage anything, and whacking it with mallet as I walked in a circle around tire.

 

[bdalameda]

Hand grinder with a cutoff wheel works great on old dried out tires.

 

[Larry Fine]

Curious - What did you use to cut it?

 

[ST1100Y]

I can relate...

Back in the 80ies is was kinda fashion to force (wider) metric tires onto inch wheels...

Leading to a different kind of burn-out on a 70ies Kawa Z750...

 

[DannoXYZ]

I’ve used jigsaw to cut off tyre.

 

[klaproth]

I often lose my patience getting them off, and use a recip saw.

 

[ST1100Y]

... a recip saw.

I considered and planned a lot for the motorcycle workshop, but not those kind of tools...
He'd also brought another new metric rear tire, showed him that it just wouldn't go on... he then brought one in imperial size, which plopped on right away...

 

[Mellow]

A bead breaker would help...

 

[Oldbikefixr]

I did this once on a really old Honda CL77. The rear tire was literally the 'wood hard' mentioned already. I cut it down to close to the rim with a hacksaw. Managed to get a spoon between the steel wire and rim...finished the job with my Dremel, repeated on the other side. Saved the original rims with no damage, an found little rust inside the rim. The bike had been mostly disassembled and stored in the PO's attic...one of those older styles that could have been a second story had the builder wanted. LOTS of stuff up there, kind'a reminded me of old house/cluttered attic scenes from a horror movie but he wasn't interested in any poking around.

 

[Sadlsor]

When first I read the title, I thought "sawzall"... being careful and working slowly.
Larry's method made a much cleaner job of it, but still sounds like a LOT of work... I bet that took a minute.
No matter.
He's retired.

 

[ST1100Y]

A bead breaker would help...

You did notice the pic of the full equipped tire machine?
Beads where loose, the diameter too small to come over the flange/lip (without brute force -> damaging the wheel), needed to expose the wire and use a bolt cutter...

 

[Mellow]

Lol I did notice. I've had luck with heating up with a heat gun. It went on so it can come off. But, there are always more than one way to do something.

 

[ST1100Y]

Lol I did notice. I've had luck with heating up with a heat gun.

Yep tried that at first, and lots of mounting paste, the wheel already too hot to hold with bare hands, that old Dunflop still giggled at me...
Took a glimpse at the watch and figured "...enough time wasted!!!..."
That old cast wheels had very high (but thin) flanges, didn't want to risk damaging it...
The metric tire beads where also too wide for the bead retainers on the wheel...

 

[Al st1100]

A bead breaker would help...

A real bead breaker works.

 

[Igofar]

I've only needed my Motion Pro Bead Pro to break the bead on just about any tires from Harley Davidson's to BMW's, but this old tire was so stiff and cold, I couldn't even force a spoon between the rim and the tire!
And this was after sitting in front of a portable heater for a half an hour, attacking it with a heat gun, etc.
I didn't feel like digging out the large C Clamps, or portable bead breaker, so I just grabbed a box cutter and my dead blow hammer.
It only took a minute or two, and no smoking burn outs to inhale in the garage from a saw or cutoff wheel.

 

[bdalameda]

I have an old iron hand operated bead breaker that is ancient and from the looks of it was probably made for old car tires like a Model T. There is no motorcycle bead that this thing won't unseat. I only pull it out for extreme cases. Here is a picture of a similar tool.