Removal and installation...

[udallcustombikes]

Of solid rubber tires. I am fixing up a sweet kids trike for a friend and I need to replace the tires and I don't know how to go about doing that.

 

[jerrykr]

I searched around long and hard on the tricycle forums and the only thing that I found was a suggestion to put the solid tire in boiling water to soften it up. I have a schwinn lil' bandit that needs a rear tire replace. I now have the tire, but i have not attempted getting it mounted yet. I was thinking of suspending the tire in the water with strings to keep it off the bottom of the pan while being heated????

This is just my own idea, but I was also thinking of slathering the wheel up with vasoline or something like that to help things slip. a co-worker suggested dish soap, but I hesitate to trap any water based anything under the tire against the metal.

They did mention wearing gloves.

When you find the successful tire mount process, please PM me how to do it, or hopefully not to report how not to do it.

 

[g-ratter]

Not sure if this would work but I saw a video of some guys working on a 1915 board track racer were they torched the tire to get it on. They said this was very common to do???? They just kept moving the torch around and around the tire then quickly put it on the rim.

 

[Bendix]

yikes! some drastic measures! :shock: when we used to install the semi-pneumatic tires (usually they're not completely solid- there's typically a hollow center) on trikes and sidewalk bikes we would just cut off the old tire then set the new tire out in the sun on the dumpster or something to soften them a little before we took a couple really big screwdrivers or motorcycle tire levers to them. kind of a pain but they aren't all that bad.......

 

[Jetaja]

why not use wax or soap? would help IMAO :idea:

 

[Meeba]

yes, putting the wheels in a pot of boiling water is the way to go. it softens up the tire a bit enough to get it off, also need to boil the new one to get it back on.