I have a tire that was allowed to set flat. I have it jacked up now, but the side walls have collapsed somewhat. The side plate on the outside has retracted a couple of inches from the o-ring. How do I get the sidewall back out against the o-ring so I can air the tire? There is very little gap between the ring and the rim, so I don't think ether will work. Suggestions or experiences?
We’ve had some success wrapping the tread with a chain and a ratchet binder and giving it a squeeze around the circumference. If it does seat release the chain promptly. There’s also a thick tire grease I’ve seen the tire truck guys use to fill the void. I think it was made by Murphy’s.
You can try removing the valve and fastening a large compressor directly to it.Let it build up air,fold the airline,then let it go.Sometimes the sudden boost gets the job done. With a try
Just use a slightly inflated 20" bicycle tube to fill the gap. Be sure to lube it up good so it doesn't get stuck when the bead seats.
You can also use a bead blaster that is essentially an air tank with a fan shaped nozzle and a quick release ball valve. Murphy's tire soap should work too. I saw a tire tech. use it to fill up a huge skidder tire. After the tire was seated he scooped up the tire soap and put it back in the pail. He made mounting the tire look easy. Used the picker boom on his truck to push the tire on the rim. Then he used about a 6ft. tire iron to get the other side on. Threw a couple handfuls of the Murphy's tire soap into the gaps around the rim and then clamped the air hose on the valve without the valve stem and filled the tire. Once the tire was seated he quickly took the air hose off and put the valve stem in. It took him about 10 or 15 minutes start to finish. I was impressed!
This one I've never thought of or seen done. Thanks, that sounds actually useful in a pinch. Our somewhat local big tire man has the knuckleboom truck with the tire grapple on it, I think he just squeezes the tire and pushes and pulls on it. The other tire guys use the big pail of tire dope, they don't have a knuckleboom. I have a bead blaster tank and I don't think it would touch a 20.5, to get it on a rim.
I've got some 48-31.00 20 and 48-25.00 20 spreader truck tires with o-rings, and I take out the valve core and hook the best air supply available at the moment to it. I then fill up the gaps with undiluted Murphy's oil soap tire lube. If a bubble pops, just pack in more soap. As it pushes the soap out, I scoop it back into a big peanut butter jar for bead seating use, it gets dirty so I keep it just for this. You lose very little of the 2 or 3 pounds you use each time.
Success! Thanks to all the replies. The inner tube idea was good, but there hasn't been a bicycle motor around here for over 20 years. The chain and ratchet binder idea didn't directly help much. I wrapped the chain around twice and used all the travel on two binders. My pail of Murphys tire grease was nearly empty. So I used all the tire grease I had. I think it helped it was left out over night, and was a little stiffer. Probably about 50F. Then I hooked a bridle on the chains around the circumference and pulled it slightly with my backhoe. That got the ring close enough to the o-ring for the grease to plug the gaps. I didn't have enough time to fully inflate the tire today, but its back to standing on all fours.
I've had better luck using a 4" strap on stubborn tires then chains, and a recapper plug helps too.
I just looked up recapper plug. Thanks for sharing JLarson.
My tire guy showed em to me while we were doing tractor tires once. Make trying to reseat or just fill a flat loader/tractor/bh tire up quick.