The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Breaking tire bead on alloy wheels

Recently acquired a 57 Chevy 1/2 short bed NAPCO. It had 15X10 wheels and 12.5 Mudders which had been on since at least the 80s. The tire were well past their replace date and our local county had an amnesty on dropping off tires so I took them to a local tire dealer and asked if they could remove the tires from the wheels and if not I'd cut them off. Several hours later I got a call they could break the bead (they had tried and broke a chunk of the wheel off in their attempt). I picked them back up and craved off the tires with my sawzall. Now am looking for anything that will chemically break the bead but not eat the alloy wheel in the process.

I would use a grinder also, just go slow and take your time.

Try some Coke. I had some tires that would not come loose with a air assist bead breaker. I poured Coke on it and let them sit for 2-3 days making sure it stayed wet around the bead. They actually broke loose quite easily. It might be worth a try.

I used a multi function tool from harbour freight to remove undercoating. This is a ultrasonic vibrator saw blade. Very similiar to the cast remover tool the doctor uses.This thing worked well on the undercoating, cut thru it like butter. This may work on the rims and has lots of other uses.