My co-driver and I decided to head up to Donnie's to dismount 4 tires and remount them on the OEM's and then put on a new set of V710's. I've mounted a fair share of tires before (helping out over at Hubcap Heaven) and I've used Donnie's machine when helping him mount tires, so I felt like we were golden.
245/35/18's go on 8" rims all day long. Problem is, some 18's are harder to mount then others... more on that later.
So I break the beads on the first race rim and pull the tire. Everything is going as planned. So we get the new tire on and try to fill it, and get a minor kink in the bead, so it won't seat. Usually, beating the tire on the ground will flex the tire to get the bead to seat. Kumhos though have an extremely stiff sidewall.... After a lot of beating (while Bryan and Donnie laughed at me because it sounded and looked like I was having sex with a tire), we got it to seat.
Tire 2 ran about the same amount of fun... taking way too long to seat, but we finally managed to get it to work.
Tire 3 ran into a problem. We couldn't get the damn thing to seat to save our lives. We would take it off, lube the hell out of the rim and the tire and remount it, and all the beating in the world couldn't get it to seat. So we went onto Tire 4.
Same issue with Tire 4 as 3. Now we are getting frustrated. It's now 11:30pm and I have a 2 hour drive home and we have 2 of the 8 tires mounted and balanced.
So after a lot of thinking, we remember that in the desert or frozen tundra, when a tire de-beads, some use lighter fluid to get it to seat... yeah, great idea at 11:45pm at night
Donnie has a lot of stuff, but lighter fluid he doesn't. Bryan and I decide to drive to the closest 24 hour grocery store in search of lighter fluid, while Donnie dismounts our old A3S04's from the OEM rims and trys to mount the old V710's on them. After returning from Lowes Foods with lighter fluid and starting fluid, we find Donnie no where to be found and the two tires that needed beading in the parking area, covered in water from a hose.
Hmmm... After finding Donnie in the electrical shop reading about beading tires with the 'explosion' method, we find out that he read that carb cleaner does the trick and tried it while we were gone, with no success. It did make an pop, but didn't seat the bead.
Well, after spending $5 on lighter fluid and starting fluid, I figured we had to try that too. After watching the online video of the dude doing this, it becomes apparent of how soft the sidewall is on an true offroad tire. I didn't let that discourage me
We all go outside and I put a good healthy dose of lighter fluid inside tire... After lighting a rag and throwing it on it, there is no explosion, just a nice flame on the tire... EEEK. We put out quickly with the hose. Hmmm... might as well try the starting fluid. Following the same procedure with the other tire but with starting fluid, it produces the same results... no explosion, but a nice little fire. All not good for tires that are $250 a piece, but there was no damage to the tires, for there was very little heat.
While Bryan and I were gone, Donnie was able to mount the V710's on the OEM's with no problems.
Figures...
So, now we have 6 mounted and balanced and 2 sort of mounted
Bryan will be dropping off the tough two tomorrow at a local shop.
All I can say is that after leaving Donnie's house at 1:45am, I realize he's a good sport and really good guy. To put up with our antics and stupidity: farting, joking, burping, etc. for 5+ hours in order to attempt to mount and balance 8 tires, well, he is up for sainthood
We better do well at the Peru ProSolo with the things, or I am going to write a nastygram to Kumho
- AB
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