I ran the beads in trucks that seen a lot of highway service miles. Not really a good setup for vocational work I've found that are low speed or subject to flats. The valve stems are of a special type for the beads and you must use very dry air or they can clump inside the tire and become an unbalanced scenario. Hard to reuse them also and tire needs a lot of cleaning before it can be patched so a bit labor intensive plus the cost of the beads again.

"Centramatic" wheel balancers are very good but a bit of up front cost and will last the life of the truck. Again these are beneficial if mostly highway miles. I tend to like the lead or iron weights that stick, or clamp on just as used on automobiles as they are easy to remove and reapply but not a lot of shops can dynamically balance large tires. I have found they offer the best balance all around.

X2 on the lube, Ruglide.

Also X2 on the balance beads, them damned things get in the valve core, also turn the air blue! 

Always handy, but not mentioned, for all size tires, bead blaster to seat beads, while you have the tire chucked to a compressor.  It will however blow the small wheels and tires across the shop.  Also a handy pants remover and scare device!

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I've got 2 of those HF changers(well from Princess Auto up here...)  Put one onto 2by6 tubing that slides into the forklift forks.Now have a stable,solid place to work on....

Agree , the more 'slippery stuff', the better,faster tires come off or go on.

I also use a 'bead sealant' now AFTER I clean BOTH rim bead and tire beads.

I bought a HF tire changer years ago and have used it quite a lot, from trailer tires to front tractor tires.  I bought a bucket of Colt Soft Pellets at Walmart and have used them for years to balance tires, works well for me.  Fighting a set of 16.9-28's now and yes, the right tire tools make a difference.  I have an old tire iron that Dad coveted, I didn't understand why until I replaced the tires on the 35 Ford, that iron was made just for those split/solid ring tires.

Tire mounting lubricant marketed for the purpose does not do this. 

I do and I don't. I have some that leak a little, had one come out 20 miles down the road. Had a ATV tire that plugs did not work it seemed. So I took it to a tire shop, they put a plug in it.

I have had a old 1950's manual tire machine since the late 80's.  Still works great for trailer and equipment tires. No so much for many of the newer autos. With the big offsets it doesn't have a tall enough center to put the nut on.But it did come with a add on to do old Ford model A wheels, and permission of the old owner to come use it at his convenience. But since he has now moved to Arizona, I don't expect to see him to often.

[QUOTE=200Tom1]I want to congratulate you guys on figuring out tire lube is far slicker than dish soap. I learned one day when we ran out of tire lube at my tire shop. I bought a big bottle of dish soap to use in the tire machines. We noticed immediately it was crap for mounting tires. I went to NAPA and bought a gallon of their lube. It was far better than dish soap. The slickest tire lube we found was Bowes Big Blue. [/QUOTE

That right there is what I use. Leaves no residue difficult to clean up either. A garden hose will do the trick. I use either Bowes, or Tech patch plugs for flat repair also as they seal against the steel cords and do not allow them to rust from moisture intrusion through the puncture. Same with their rubber cement; never a failure following either manufacturers procedures.

 

Not all of us are built like ballast and don't have your advantage

Same theory I use with a Wilton bench vise bolted to a jig that slides into a receiver hitch and you drive wedges into the slack so it's rigid. Works so much better when the vise is held stationary.

I have an HF manual tire changer... both the full size, anchored to the barn floor, and the one for small equipment mounted to a bench... they both work fine...

But I haven't used 'em since I got the Ranger tilt-back tire changing machine.

I don't waste time with tire beads... while they WILL help alleviate balance issues above 45mph or so, they just beat up the inside of the tire carcass at any other speed.  I can just as easily give it a proper balance with the Snap-on multi-axis balancer and call it done.  As added boot- I can easily see any tire runout on any point on the tire, which will clue me in to problems before ever mounting it on the vehicle.

We do most farm work with crawlers, but had a wheel tractor that ended up needing flats fixed too. Then a 1960 Chey C60 with slit rims, never had one come apart. But prompted me to get clip on tire chuck.

Have friend and neighbor that believe you should do as much of your repair work as possible. We bought a combine together, so we fixed all our own combine tires too.

Never fixed all that many tires but have delt with many obsolete by now wheels that tire shop would not touch. But hopefully I am done with real obsolete stuff. 

The worst I ever got into was replacing a 16.1 flotation tire on the hay baler.  A 3 string baler so bigger tires than your standard 2 string baler. The way this baler is you need to keep original wheel with the offset. Had just discovered the super cheap used airplane tires, they were selling mounted on ag wheels. They warned me it would be a fight and I would need a tube in it. It took all afternoon but with a second person and a backhoe to hold the wheel down, we got it mounted. another that was a surprise as to how hard it would be was the first Polaris ATV tire we fixed. But my son was taking it off the worry side of the wheel.

Never had many tire that needed to be balanced. When they do I took them to town.

Other than pushing a quick plug in I think my tire fixing days are done. Just hurts to much moving any more. Danged old warn out body.

BuckSkin wrote: If you are going to use airplane tires...    ...take them somewhere that knows what they are doing and have them foam-filled... ...they will wear out the equipment they are on and the next replacement piece of equipment as well.

THE Truth.  They will be impervious to absolutely positively everything but sunlight and gravity... and you'll get every penny's worth out of that foam investment.