I’ve been happy using my tire changing stand for all tasks save one… breaking the tire bead. My fancy C-clamp version of a bead breaker won’t fit on the wheel when it is on the stand. It also won’t work with all rims. I saw that MRP, the manufactured of my wheel stand, now has a bead breaker attachement. It was not inexpensive, but was under my knee-jerk-won’t buy threshold. An order was placed.
Note: The folks at MRP really need to do better follow ups. I didn’t mind waiting the 6 weeks it took for the bead breaker to arrive, but it would have been much nicer had they bothered responding to one of my few queries regarding the order status. If they said “It will be 6 weeks” at the get go I’d have sat back and waited with peace of mind, not wondering if an order got lost some place.
Pieces of bead breaker
Tire changing stand
The first image shows the several pieces of the bead breaker that will attach to the stand. My only concern is how it will effect stand storage once the unit is attached. I’ll find out how that works soon enough. The second image is the stand ready for use before I added the bead breaker.
Attaches here
Attach here, too
Like this
Tighten
These images show how the breaker base permanently attaches to the stand. The bottom arm of the breaker base slides completely up the bottom of the stand hoop base and is held in place with a set screw on the post and cable clamps at the hoop. Note that the base is situated 180º from the opening in the hoop. I don’t know if that is important, but it seems right.
Adjustable radius
Adjustable height
The next two parts of the bead breaker allow adjustability for various rim sizes. The first moves in and oout, the second up and down. The locking T screws were a bit tight at first, not applying enough pressure to hold the arms in place. After some back-and-forth I got them to do their job.
Attach breaker arm
Attach blade
All Put Together
The breaker blade and arm are attached with nylon washers and metal bushings save for the short arm that connected the blade to the verticle arm which uses a nylon bushing.
Nylocks hold the pieces together. The short arm on the end of the breaker bar can be used to lock the bar in the down position… I believe it is to hold the bead of a tire in the drop center of the rim while working on the far side with tire irons.
All in all it looks like the unit will do its job. Of course, I changed my rear tire just last week so it will be a while before I give it a working try. I’ve still got some miles left on my front tire.
Remove this part
Stores almost as compact
Now for the real test… how will it store. The breaker arms slide off the breaker base after loosening the T-screw. Once the arm was removed I loosened the column set screw, put the hoop on the ground, and slid the base onto the exposed column.
How about that… it fits. Kind of. The column used to come up to the end of the base claming tube. Now it sits down a bit. But, the slot in the claming tube is long enough that when I tighten the T-handle it still clamps the column tight enough to lift the unit by the legs. The end result is that the unit sits a couple of inches higher. It will still fit where I store it when not in use.