Thread: Wheelbarrow tyre tube replacement

OK, not sure this is the right forum, but I trust my olders and betters (sic) to move this as appopriate.

Anyway, I stuck a spike through my wheelbarrow tyre - long story - got it all apart, and now I can't get it back together again!

I know about bicycle innner tubes, including smaller-diameter kid's bikes:

1. Get the tyre wall half on the rim
2. Get the inner tube, slightly inflated, in under the tyre on the rim
3. Get the other tyre rim back over
4. Inflate all

And I reckon you'd need 2 stilsons and a hammer to make that work, which would bust the new tube in the process..... so what's the right way? Or do we just chuck the wheel away and get another? Surely not@!

Haven't done a wheel barrow tyre before but shouldn't be that difficult.
Some tyres are much easier than others. On my mountain bike i can get tyres on and off without any tools or difficultly. It is a different story with the one of my racing bikes with really skinny tyres. But i have another racing bike that is quite easy, but not as easy as the MTB.
Sometimes it is just a bad combination of tyres and rims.
I found leaving the whole thing in the sun for a bit helped quite a bit.
Persistence is the best method unfortunately.
Cheers
Tony

Three forks (using the handle end, of course) works for me on bike tyres, but they might be a bit delicate for wheelbarrow tyres. Very careful use of a few screwdrivers could also work, as long as you address the 'can't slip and tear the tube' issue. There are also nicely rounded tyre irons if you can find some small enough (the ones sold for bikes should work, and be a bit sturdier than the best silverwear!!)

I did 2 of them only recently. First one was a breeze - the 2 halves of the wheel were bolted together with 4x bolts & nuts - just undid them!

The 2nd one had the wheel halves spot welded together. I ended up with the same problem as you, and briefly considered drilling out the spot welds, and replacing them with nuts & bolts (might still be an option for you if the wheel is steel).

After leaving it a few days, I came back to it - and realised how I should have done it.....

This is what I did:
- Sit the wheel in the vice (gripping the bearing tube), and treat the wheel as a clock - 6 closest to you, 12 away from you, 9 to your left.
- Bottom tyre bead was already over the rim, tube was in - and inflated slightly.
- Turned it around so the valve was about 3 o'clock on the top rim, and fitted it through the hole
- Pushed the top bead of the tyre under the top rim, from about 9, down past 6, and around to 3.
- squeezed the 2 tyre beads together at the bottom, and pushed them in towards the centre of the wheel - into the depression where the 2 halves meet (where you'd have spoke ends on a bike rim).
- This gave me enough leeway to push the rest of the tyre bead around to about 11 & 1, and only needed 1 bike tyre lever at 12 to pop it over.

Then the usual tube precautions & inflation.

Tyre levers, rubber mallet, Start at the valve and finish at the valve.

This stuff is good up to (they say) a 6mm hole and I have used it on barrows and ride on mower wheels with lasting success, certainly saves the work of pulling the wheel apart if you're repairing rather than replacing.

SLiME Tire Sealant

I know enough about tyres on bikes, motor bikes and cars to know that the best thing for me is to take the wheel to my local tyre shoppe.

My $180 Kelso barrow now has a $40 tyre and a $28 tube in it....and my $28 SuperCheap trolley now has $30 worth of tyres, $20 worth of tubes and $15 worth of bearings attached to it.

I recently ripped the valve stem from my kelso wheel barrow tire. Got a new tube but because the rim is plastic found it really hard to get the tire bead over the rim. $5 later the local tire shop had it all done with no damage.

Just back upright from hip replacment, leg a bright yellow sausage and feels about the same ... but I digress ......

Got it done before I got done (so to speak), a combination of levers, swearing and persistence. Lots of all of them. And follow the bike tyre replacement theory, but it doesn't work quite the same.

I like the vice idea, but even better I like the local tyre shop $5 idea, even having done it once successfully, subcontracting the next replacmenet is the way to go!

It helps if you put soap on the rim of the tyre. I did one recently with a rubber mallet and soap. Until i used the soap it was not going anywhere.