OT: wheelbarrow tire replacement

[Black Forest]

I bought a new tire for one or our wheelbarrows. The new tire is completely collapsed as in lies flat on the workbench. I can not get a strap around the outside circumference of the tire in order to separate the two beads in order to seat the beads and fill with air. I have wrestled with this small tire for and hour. I want to kill it! The tire has no form to it.

[wmgeorge]

I bought a new tire for one or our wheelbarrows. The new tire is completely collapsed as in lies flat on the workbench. I can not get a strap around the outside circumference of the tire in order to separate the two beads in order to seat the beads and fill with air. I have wrestled with this small tire for and hour. I want to kill it! The tire has no form to it.

The last one I purchased for my 50 year old wheelbarrow was the looks like a pneumatic tire but is really a solid, sort of tire. Its been on for years and yes it included the wheel.

[4miller1]

The new tires are crap.

[JohnMartin]

Put a tube in it.

[OaklandGB]

My old WB tire was leaking, so I bought one of those solid replacements. Works fine but it is a bit too narrow and is slightly smaller diameter.. Tends to make more ruts that the standard tire, and occasionally the front bar catches on something due to the smaller diameter. . I should have paid more attention to the tire size, otherwise it has worked out just fine.

John M made a good suggestion for installing a tube IF you want to continue with that dish rag of a tire. Maybe consider just junking it?? I think most of the big box stores and TSC type stores sell pre mounted tires, suitable for wheel barrows for about 15 bucks. Maybe just get one of those and treat it with TireJect to prevent it from leaking or getting punctures.

[chipmaker4130]

The 'solid' (actually polyurethane foam-filled) tires don't roll nearly as easily as a pneumatic tire over dirt. On concrete they do ok. The foam tends to break down over time too. I prefer a good pneumatic for that reason, but there are a great many goat-head thorns here so keeping a conventional tire inflated is a problem. As for the OP's problem, a tube is probably the easiest fix.

[Black Forest]

Success! I put a wider ratchet strap on the tire and really tightened it down. Then I beat it with a big rubber hammer, bounced the tire and did a jig and finally it held enough to seat the beads.

[Bented]

A very dangerous but often used method by off road tire changers is to spray a bit of starting fluid into the tire, stand as far away as possible and throw a lit match at it, the resulting explosion will seat the beads.
If a small tire and you are a brave man simply use a torch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RAB4KsXk44

[psomero]

A very dangerous but often used method by off road tire changers is to spray a bit of starting fluid into the tire, stand as far away as possible and throw a lit match at it, the resulting explosion will seat the beads.
If a small tire and you are a brave man simply use a torch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RAB4KsXk44

it's not that dangerous as long as you don't do it in the middle of a bunch of dry brush, and don't use too much or too volatile of a solvent. When I was a golf cart mechanic in a past life, that was my trick of last resort to seat turf tamer tires, which are tubeless and pretty tricky to seat bead on because of their width x diameter ratio. We're talking 12in rim, 10in wide sometimes (±, been a while)

Remove valve core, seat bead as best as you can on the low side, lay tire on flat ground away from stuff, spray a quick but continuous shot of solvent or whatever around the diameter of the rim, stand as far back as you can, count to five (maybe three? it's been years) then wave lighter past the valve stem. If you did it right, the solvent will pop, the bead seats, and the excess will go out the valve stem as a tiny jet and burn out. If it doesn't fire as expected, the jet will blow past the unseated bead and go out in a second. Make sure there's no remaining flame, rinse, repeat.

It always worked for me, sometimes would take 2-3 tries to get it to go, and only failed once where I simply couldn't get it to work even with a ratchet strap around the OD of the tire to limit the radial ballooning.

[boslab]

I only buy the puncture proof foam filled these days, fed up of flat tyres
mark

[old mart]

I would prefer to use an innertube in a wheelbarrow, with some of that sealant added to make the wheel thornproof. If using that sealant, avoid checking the pressure, I ruined a digital gauge when a tiny bit of the muck got into the works.

[Dan Dubeau]

Not much is more frustrating than a tire that wont seat though. Ratchet strap and bouncing the crap out of it can sure get the blood pressure up.

I too got tired of the always flat wheelbarrow tire and sprung for the flat free version. Didn't regret the purchase one bit.

[chipmaker4130]

Success! I put a wider ratchet strap on the tire and really tightened it down. Then I beat it with a big rubber hammer, bounced the tire and did a jig and finally it held enough to seat the beads.

Should'a started with the jig. That's probably all it needed!

[Ringo]

That lighter fluid thing is something that I just must do sometime.
It looks like a hoot just b'cause

[psomero]

That lighter fluid thing is something that I just must do sometime.
It looks like a hoot just b'cause

lighter fluid is not volatile enough. use brake cleaner. with ronsonol, you'd just light the tire on fire and burn the insides