JimR
Elite Member
Today I learned a new way to seat tires that will not seat on the rims. I will not take resposibility should you try this and injure or kill yourself. I had two brand new Carlisle R4's mounted on my Cub Cadet wheels today. The company could not get the tires to seat on the rims. The sidewalls were so stiff that they would not come out. Yes, the tires were the proper size for the rims. They were 27x10.50x15 6 ply tires. I left the place with my tires and rims mounted but unseated on the rims. I told them that I would get them seated. When I got home my buddy was there waiting for me. We tried the strap around the outside of the tire to force out the sidewalls. That didn't work. We got one side seated and couldn't get the other side on. We even tried the inflated bicycle tube in the loose side. That didn't work. All of a sudden he said," Do you have any lighter fluid"? No was my reply, but I do have carb cleaner and starter fluid. So here is how we seated the tires. I squirted a small amount of ether into the valve stem with the core removed and lit it with my propane torch. The tires went boom and seated on the rim. It only took about one or two seconds to put enough ether into the tire. I could not ignite it using the valve stem. I did ignite it by putting air into the valve stem and lighting the fumes coming out of the leaking bead. This worked on both tires. I never laughed so hard after we got these on. It was so **** simple that it is down right funny. He told me that he had done this on his dumpster truck tire once when it lost air pressure and broke the bead. He did it right on the truck without removing the dual rear wheels. YES, this could be very dangerous. I also found out that too much fuel will not ignite. The fuel to air ratio has to be right to ignite. Using the air in the valve stem solved that problem. As I stated earlier in this post. You do this at your own risk.
