Tire won't fully seat

[Welder Dave]

I got lucky and had some help to mount some new tires on my skid steer. They are a pain but took air no problem once on the rims. I will say a backhoe stabilizer makes a great tool bead breaker. I used tire grease fairly liberally for mounting but a couple tires didn't quite seat all the way on to the wheel. There's about a 6-8" section that needs to go less than an 1/8" to fully seat. A couple guys said to run them and they may fully seat. The tires are rated up to 75 PSI so I left 70 PSI in them overnight. Will tires seat easier at the high pressure or would it be better to lower to what I normally run at 35 PSI. I've also read that warming the tires up a bit will soften them and they may seat. Has anyone had tires that won't fully seat? I wire brushed the rims prior to installing the new tires.

 

[Jeckyl1920]

I've seen tire shops go up to 120 psi to seat beads. I'm not a tire guy tho.... did you try whacking it with a sledge? Tires tend to be a "get the big hammer" job, at least in my very limited experience.

Grain of salt. Hopefully someone with more experience can give you more confident info.

 

[funwithfuel]

Never EVER use any heat on any tire or rim!!!
Don't exceed maximum posted air pressure. If it doesn't seat properly, break it down, lube it up and do it again. Are all the rims original to the machine? Make sure rim diameter is the same.
It's too easy to ruin your life on something as simple as tires.

 

[Wytruckwrench]

Deflate the tire, break beads, make sure bead area is well lubed and clean. Inflate tire to 5-10 PSI, take a hammer and go around the diameter of the tire thumping the tread. This kind of helps even things up, then continue airing up to specified air pressure.

 

[Delmer]

Run your normal pressure and don't worry about it. They'll be seated in a couple hours of loading most likely. only problem would be if you get dirt in that leads to a leak down the road.

 

[Jonas302]

I've seen tire shops go up to 120 psi to seat beads. I'm not a tire guy tho.... did you try whacking it with a sledge? Tires tend to be a "get the big hammer" job, at least in my very limited experience.

Grain of salt. Hopefully someone with more experience can give you more confident info.

NEVER ever ever put that much air in to seat the bead you could just as well have a bomb in front of your face one of the times its going to go off if a tire shop needs to put that much air in find a new shop immediately

Its not uncommon for skid steer tires to do that especially if they have large bead protector bump outs and rims that are a little out of shape they will run in at normal pressure but you wouldn't want that all packed with dirt so would be best to break the beads and try to get them strait

 

[Welder Dave]

Rims are original and in pretty good shape. There was some light surface rust and remnants of old rubber on the bead area but no rust pits or dents. The wire brush in the grinder cleaned them pretty good. I remember when I had tubes put in the old tires at a tire shop, they didn't fully seat either. The idiot at the tire shop put over 100 PSI in them and then finally broke the bead and tried more lube but they were worse than this. They needed to go about a 1/4". I think I'm going to lower the pressure and drive over a 2x2 in the center of the tire and see if that forces them out a little.

 

[AzIron]

I have used a torpedo heater when it was under 60 degrees out on a few tires that wouldn't seat they didn't need to get hot just warm enough to be flexible like they would be in the summer

 

[DIYDAVE]

This will be hind sight, here, but I generally take the tires some place warm, prior to mounting a day or 2 later. Warmer rubber flexes and slides better...

 

[Welder Dave]

Yes it was a colder day mounting them 12-14C (53-57F) and I read about leaving them in the sun. I was thinking about a torpedo heater just get them up to about normal room temperature but it looks like leaving them overnight with high pressure did the trick. If they aren't fully seated they're really, really close. I don't think there's room for dirt to get in. It got below freezing overnight, maybe that helped. The pressure dropped about 10 PSI when I checked early this morning. I put them at 36 PSI so I'll have to check next weekend if they went down. If they go flat, I'll have to break the bead anyway and try some bead sealer but I'm hoping they'll be OK.

 

[Vetech63]

Well, I've seen a couple of non-English speaking dudes with 2 cans of ether and they sp...……..oh never mind. lol

 

[funwithfuel]

I'm pretty sure this was to illustrate why you don't weld on rims. But I'm guessing it applies to lit ether as well.

 

[Vetech63]

I'm pretty sure this was to illustrate why you don't weld on rims. But I'm guessing it applies to lit ether as well.View attachment 187437

I wonder if insurance covered that car.

 

[funwithfuel]

I don't think anyone would have survived if they were sitting in their smoking a cigarette

 

[Vetech63]

I don't think anyone would have survived if they were sitting in their smoking a cigarette

Perfect example of why I have the "I DONT do tire service of any kind" rule.

 

[funwithfuel]

Me too