does anyone have any suggestions on breaking the bead on a tire? I'm trying to get my 33's off the wheels that they are on so that I can mount them on some 5x4.5 wheels and nothing that I try is breaking the bead loose.

I have tried the whole driving over the side of it thing, that failed epically. The way I usually do it (and I have done SEVERAL) this way, is to way a wooden 4x4 post on the sidewall so that the end will just barely miss the edge of the wheel and they always pop right off, but these 33's are refusing to budge.

I'm about down to just building a bead breaker or going to harbor freight and buying one. Can buy one for $50, or a manual tire changer for $45, but I don't have a place to mount the tire changer.

Don't say "just take them to a tire store" because I am not willing to pay some schmuck $5 a piece to dismount them and $10 a piece to remount them when I know I can do it myself

 

Try a flat bar maybe?

 

once I have the beads broke, I will be perfectly fine taking them off the wheel, just these beads are being insanely stubborn.

I am in the process of turning an old broken harbor freight folding cherry picker into a bead breaker.

 

Was thinking you might be able to wedge it in between the bead to get it to break

 

do you have a hi-lift jack handy?
you could put the foot up tight against the rim on the sidewall and jack your jeep up.

 

no, unfortunately I don't have a hi-lift (yet). I did try a 6 ton bottle jack for the same purspoe and did nothing but lift the jeep. Before anyone asks, YES, i removed the valve core.

I'm thinking about going a step further with the bead breaker I am building and adding the axle shafts out of my broke d35 to hold the tire in position so that I can use it to remove the tire from the wheel as well

 

jack the jeep up by the front axle bolt a 5x4.5 wheel up to the front axle. position the wheel limp next to the other wheel lip and lower it down that what we used to do my brothers

 

SUCCESS! built a bead breaker that works flawlessly. looks like the one you would buy at Harbor Freight, only on steroids...

 

pics

 

will take a pic in the AM if the storms don't pick it up and take it from me

 

i wanna see the pic of yours too. i have the harbor freight one, and its cheap as hell. i had to modify it a bit to get it to work good.

 

this one still needs a tiny bit of modification, mostly just the part that pushes the bead down so far is nothing but a piece of 3/8 round bar that I curved to match the curve of the wheel. I need to add a flat piece that slides up under the wheel lip because with just the round bar, it has a tendency to slide down the sidewall if not positioned absolutely perfect.

Once I get all 4 tires mounted, I'm going to take them and have them balanced unless that too will be outrageous, if it will, I will buy a bubble balancer from Harbor Freight and do that myself as well

 

Here is my gogo gadget tool

 

Just throw some heavy load airsoft bbs in each tire, balances them perfectly. Its cheap too. That's how I balance all my tires.

 

from my understanding, that's not as simple as just dumping them in... they say you have to do it over and over to get it right