# I'm Fabricating My Own Manual Tire Changer.



## ovalteen (Feb 15, 2011)

Hello everyone. Awhile back I posted about a 1956 Kellogg American Air Compressor I was working on. Well thats been finished and I thought I would show what I'm working on now and what that compressor has been helping me with. I'm in the middle of fabricating my own tire changer and thought some of you might be interested. 

I love fabricating and especially love making things out of scrap I have laying around, and this is no exception. The only things I've had to buy so far are a 20" x 20" square of 1/8" steel and a 58" length of 1" schedule 40 pipe. Total so far is $25.

I refuse to pay people to do stuff that I can do myself. And since I no longer work at a dealership I no longer have access to a tire changer. Shops around here want $10 to $15 a tire to mount and balance and to me thats money I don't want to pay when I can do it myself.

I wanted to make this as compact and sturdy as possible. I chose to make the table top 20" so that I can do rims up to that size. 17" inch rims are most likely the largest that I will ever have and or do, so that leaves me plenty of working room. I left 22" inches of pipe from the table top up. I intentionally made it a little long until I see what holes I use on different rims. Most rims I measured are 7" to 11" wide so I will most likely only use 18" of the pipe and cut off 4" later on if I see its not being used.

This is what I started with. A frame from a generator, a pole that was cut down and used for a grinder pedistal and a dining table base.








I cut the generator stand up and welded it back together to make a subframe for the tire work table. The motor from that generator is on a gokart now.

































I then used the top portion of the dining table to mount the tire work table to the pedistal. The base I used for an oscillating fan I got out of the garbage......recycling at its best.
























The schedule 40 pipe is run straight through the pedistal from the bottom to the top. Its welded at the bottom, through the table piece and then to the tire work table and became the backbone of the whole tire changer. I drilled 1/4" holes every 1 1/2" from the tire work table up. These will be used for a pin that will hold the bead breaker and tire removal/installation tools in place when in use. 

I had to cut the top off the pedistal and reweld it. Whoever put that on didnt use a straight edge as it was VERY crooked.I then welded the 1/8" steel to the subframe and rounded the corners. I cut a hole in the center with my plasma cutter and ran it down the pipe and welded it all up.

















































I also have a Snapon wheel balancer in my garage and will use the wheel centering adapters on my tire changer to center the rims and hold it in place.
















Luckily it has the wide 5 adapter as well !!!
























The pipe in this picture is to show what happens next. The bead breaker tool and the tire removal/installation tool get built off of the pipe and the pin keeps it from walking up the pole as its being used. Break the beads and then pop the tire up on the perch and walk around the tire with the pipe as it rotates on the main pole and off comes the tire. I will be making the tool so it has a soft rubber wheel that rolls on the rim edge to keep rims from being damaged. I still have to fabricate the tools . I will also be making a slot in the table top to run a carriage bolt that will be used to lock the wheel down through a lug hole. It will be able to slide and adjust to any lug pattern. The table top will be covered in a rubber mat as well to protect the rim.









Here is how I made it using scrap I had laying around.
I cut up two 1 1/2" x 1/4" straps I found laying in my yard when I bought my house, a piece of pipe, and a Polaris UTV six seater drive shaft.









The bead breaker part of the tool is made up of the 1 1/2" x 1/4" strap and a piece of curved angle iron. In this pic there is another bead breaker tool waiting to be made (on the right) I will make a few that have the foot of the bead breaker at different angles for different applications. I drilled three 3/8" holes for adjustment.
















































































This is the beginnings of the tool. The part where the bead breaker tool will attatch. The handle has yet to be attatched. I drilled three 3/8" holes in this as well for adjustability. I will drill another to the right closer to the handle.
















I disassemble the U-joint of the UTV drive shaft.








I then opened up the inner diameter to weld it to the bead breaker tool. This allows me to have a solid steel handle that comes apart for storage. It is held in place with a hitch pin.

















































Here is a few pics of it in "action" I already broke the beads on this rim with the tool.
































Here is the tool broken down for storage.








I still have some final finishing to the tool but it works great. I have broken the beads on 7 rims from spares to truck tires and it performed flawlessly. I will be making some bolt on feet for better stability, I knew I would have to when I started this. Even without the feet it didnt really want to tip , but the feet will definately make it totally stable. The feet will unbolt so I can remove them when I finally have a space to bolt this down to the floor. 

The next part after making a few more breaker attatchment tools is to work on the tire removal/installation tool. I think it will be pretty slick. I still have to make a slot in the deck for the adjustable carriage bolt. This will be able to adjust for different bolt patterns and keep the rim from spinning while the tire is being removed/installed. In conjunction with laying a rubber mat on the work table to protect rims from being scratched by the table surface the breaker tool will get rubberized as well to protect the rims incase of contact.

Some people may say why bother? I love to fabricate and this tool will fit my specific needs and not be a junk harbour freight one. It only cost me $30 so far.

Oh and this is what happens when a 3" cutting wheel explodes. Luckily I was wearing my welding sleeves and it hit right where my T-shirt sleeve and the welding sleeve overlapped. This pic was taken a few hours after it happened.


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

Why didn't you just buy one from Harbor Freight???? :rofl:

Just kiddin'... With that out of the way... :lol:

I have seen this machine and I will tell you all... It is one of the easiest manual machines I have ever used to break a tire from the bead.

Excellent!


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## wolfen1086 (Oct 4, 2007)

Nice tire machine man, but why did the cutting wheel explode on you?
Were you digging in too deep with it, or cutting aluminum?
You'd love my tire changer, its broken right now till I get more wire for the welder, but almost anything is better than one from Harbor Freight. Now Northern is a different story, their stuff is usually good, I guess it all depends on what province in China it comes from.


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## marca203 (Aug 25, 2012)

if you need to break a bead we use to place the tire on the floor and use an old fashion bumper jack lace the flat part as close to the bead and start jacking before it can lift the car the bead will break


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