I am curious about your old airplane tire and how you got it changed. I had worn out 28" 24 ply airplane tires on a early C4 Treefarmer log skidder. I ran them flat for two years trying to break the bead. They did not even squish unless I had a big jag of trees behind. When they got pretty well busted down I split the two piece wheels to find out that the airplane tire beads go all the way to the center of the rim nearly touching each other. No wonder the tire valve was right in the middle and the bead would never break down.
That was a treat. I should have taken a picture or two of that fiasco.
I ordered the "new" tire from an outfit in Alabama. When it came in it was already buffed to fit a lock-ring rim, so that was going to make things a little easier. I called our tire man to come out where I had it parked when it blew. He monkeyed with it for about an hour and did nothing but lift his service truck off the ground trying to push on the ring with the crane.
I went over there to meet him after he called and told me he gave up. I asked him to follow me home to see if it would work itself loose a bit in the 2-3 mile journey. I pulled it with my truck as fast as I could stand to pull it to see if I could walk it loose. Nothing crazy fast, but it sure felt like that tire should have flown off!
I did not want to go down the highway, so we stopped to look. The only thing that I had accomplished with that was rattling my teeth loose and got the tire smoking hot. I had one last stretch though the field to get it to the farm, so he me me at the farm to drop off the tire off the back of his truck. I offered to buy him lunch for his troubles, but before we headed out, our curiosity and inability to accept defeat got the better of us...
I was still hooked to it with the truck, so he hooked to it with his crane as well to brace it while I positioned the backhoe to push the tire off the bead with the teeth of the bucket. He spotted me and I slipped a few teeth behind the bead and used the extend-a-hoe to push against the tire. Well, it kind of worked. I was more successful in pushing my truck sideways about 4' and lifted half of his truck off the ground, but the rings started to move as the rusty bead started to move.
As the rings started to come loose by means of a BFH and tire tools, we started to get excited. Prematurely. The rings finally came out, so I hooked the outer bead with the hoe bucket teeth and pulled on it while he took his hydraulic bead breaker to the back side. It was about all his bead breaker could do, but it came off the back bead after quite a few attempts.
Now, the easy part. Or not. The tire should slide right off, right? Not exactly. By the time I gave up, I had my truck drug the other direction and had his truck on the other two wheels. The tire was not coming off.
The tire man did not think my next idea would work, so I had to try it. I unhooked the hoe, he moved his truck, and I took off with the scraper with my truck to the field. I made about a dozen circles in one direction and almost a dozen in the other to see the tire take off down the field free from the rim!
That was half the battle.
The rim is sized for a 20" tire and I would guess about 14" wide. It had 16" wide bias tires, but I found a 17.5" wide radial that was the same height. That does not sound bad, but I swear the bead on each side of the tire was 3" thick! We slid the tire with the tube and boot on the rim after he shined it all up, but it was far from where it needed to be to get those rings in.
Out comes the backhoe again. He was able to push on the sidewall far enough for him to slip the rings back in with his boom as I braced the other side with the bucket. At least that took a lot less effort to do, and nothing else came off the ground or slid sideways!
I still bought him lunch!
