Mounting a tire with ether?

BigClay

BigClay

Knower of useless ZJ things
Joined
Sep 24, 2008
Location
Winston-Salem
I need to swap some tires and wheels. I plan on trying the ether method. My main question is I need to put 10 ounces of airsoft pellets in one of the tires, will the ether method melt the pellets? Second question is I have never done this before, so any pointers? :D
 
Dunno about the airsoft, never messed with them, but I have done the ether tire mounting ( in the middle of an intersection on and accident scene, the cops were NOT impressed ! but I got the truck off the road faster than setting up dollies !! )

DO NOT use too much, you can blow the tire bead off the rim ( leaving rim INSIDE tire )

be sure to start inflating with air as soon as you can, if you use too much ether it can also burn all the air out of the tire and suck the insides together, vulcanizing the tire to itself ( mostly on skinny rubber )

leave yourself an out, make a trail off the tire to keep you from being directly near the tire when it goes, it goes fast and the tire can burst.
 
I did it a lot on the carnival with tractor tires on the side of the road. Why do you need to use ether? Can you not use a tire strap on the O.D. of the tire? If you mount them most tire shops have a bead blaster that will seat them for you if you can get the tires there. I've seen folks hurt using to much...
 
And pull the valve stem! I did a couple on some Jeep rims. They were a little narrow for the wheel, but it worked. I had to kick one to get it to pop over the safety bead. I sprayed a couple seconds worth deep inside the tire, then a quick pass around the rim, the a trail out to a "safe" location. It's a lot of fun.

Edit: Start small. Better to fail to seat than to have it explode. Work your way up.
 
Ummmmmm I have reseated a Tire many many times by just putting a ratchet strap around the center of the tire and putting air in.Also if it's having a hard time walking up the bead a little soapy water is great,worse case pull the valve core and plug the air hose directly onto the valve stem without a air chuck.That has always worked for me,including two days ago when I mounted my own tires on rims out in the driveway for my CJ5.
 
You don't even need a ratchet strap, compressed air alone will seat it. You can mount your own tires in the driveway with a pry bar or two and some soapy water. Nothing to it. The hardest part is getting old tires to break down, and ether's no use to you there.
 
I've changed tires on drkelly's harbor freight tire changer plenty of times, without ether. An air compressor will seat the bead just fine, be sure to keep you fingers away from the bead when its filling.
Of course playing with fire sounds more fun. Videotape it so you can upload to youtube in case something spectacular happens :flipoff2:
 
saf-t scissors said:
You don't even need a ratchet strap, compressed air alone will seat it. You can mount your own tires in the driveway with a pry bar or two and some soapy water. Nothing to it. The hardest part is getting old tires to break down, and ether's no use to you there.
Click to expand...
I completely agree with you,I was just trying to offer as many options as possible as opposed to playing with ether around a tire.I have seen that trick tried several times and I have seen it end very badly on almost every occasion.Here's an example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6efzYWXhvw&feature=related
They'll never get that thing seated now........:shaking:
 
novacayne75 said:
im not going to give any suggestion on seating beads but u can fold up the airsoft pellets in a cheap sandwich bag and in a few miles the bag will open up. that just keeps the pellets from falling out while your seating beads.
Click to expand...

Great trick, I will try that. That will also keep the beads from spilling out.
 
I run air soft bb's...and I've used starting fluid with a propane torch several times...never affected the bb's. As for the 10oz of bb's, what size tire are you running? I haven't run anything larger than a 38 with bb's and even then 6-8oz is what I've seen most recommended and it always seems to do the trick for me.
 
I've got about 2500 normal BBs (you know, the copper-looking ones) in each of my tires. No problems.

If you have an air compressor, just throw a ratchet strap around the tires and blast em with air. Done.
 
UTfball68 said:
I run air soft bb's...and I've used starting fluid with a propane torch several times...never affected the bb's. As for the 10oz of bb's, what size tire are you running? I haven't run anything larger than a 38 with bb's and even then 6-8oz is what I've seen most recommended and it always seems to do the trick for me.
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I am running 35" Trxus MTs, and they are known to be very hard to balance, so I decided to go fromt he recommended 8 oz to 10oz just to be certain. The 10 ozs have been perfect for the little pavement driving the jeep now sees.
 
^^^Gotcha...was just wondering. Only negative affect will be a little more plinking off the rim that you'll hear under 10mph. And if you turn your radio up, who cares.
 
I've had to use it before, typically on 10" wide rims with 12.5" or narrower tires, and especially on 16.5" rims where there is no safety bead and you can't get both sides near the rim at once. As previously stated, work your way up.

Another thing to be aware of is that the air expands AND contracts very quickly, so sometimes the bead will seat and then unseat within a few seconds as it cools. That makes for alot of fun.
 
Anti-freeze and water, 50-50 mix will balance any tire. Ben doing it for 3o years plus. Tracter trailer tires to hot dog cart tires! Also makes them run cooler in hot weather.
 
Your Hot Dog Guy! said:
Anti-freeze and water, 50-50 mix will balance any tire. Ben doing it for 3o years plus. Tracter trailer tires to hot dog cart tires! Also makes them run cooler in hot weather.
Click to expand...
This is great until you lose a bead and spill antifreeze on the ground. Hope it's the environmentally friendly stuff.
:beer:
 
Your Hot Dog Guy! said:
Anti-freeze and water, 50-50 mix will balance any tire. Ben doing it for 3o years plus. Tracter trailer tires to hot dog cart tires! Also makes them run cooler in hot weather.
Click to expand...

I will go with this on my next set up, I run BBs now and you have no way to add more with out busting the bead.

Bruiser posted this somewhere:

To add the fluid to your tires, While the tire in on the rim and mounted to the Jeep, remove the valve center of the valve steam to allow it to go flat, take piece of rubber hose just larger than the valve steam so it will slip over the top of the valve steam snuggly. Fill a bottle or container with the anti freeze and water measured to the amount your wanting to add, insert the hose to the bottom of the fluid, sit it beside the tire and jack the tire off the ground, when the tire expands or debulges it will suck the fluid into the tire. easy as that.
 
burrellsjeep said:
I will go with this on my next set up, I run BBs now and you have no way to add more with out busting the bead.
Bruiser posted this somewhere:
To add the fluid to your tires, While the tire in on the rim and mounted to the Jeep, remove the valve center of the valve steam to allow it to go flat, take piece of rubber hose just larger than the valve steam so it will slip over the top of the valve steam snuggly. Fill a bottle or container with the anti freeze and water measured to the amount your wanting to add, insert the hose to the bottom of the fluid, sit it beside the tire and jack the tire off the ground, when the tire expands or debulges it will suck the fluid into the tire. easy as that.
Click to expand...

Nice trick!! :beer:
 
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