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I need to know if anyone knows how to get a tire off of a rim that appears to have a ring of some sort holding it together can you tell me how get this kind of rims apart.THANKS
If you're talking about a truck tire on a split rim aka suicide rim, do not attempt to do this yourself. They can be very dangerous. Take it to a truck tire service (call first. most won't touch them) and have it changed there. And when handling it, have the ring facing down and away from yourself. I saw a guy die from the ring blowing off and splitting his head open.
Old "split rim" type wheels are long out of favor, and many tire shops (including truck shops) will not work on them due to the risks/liability they present. Especially now that they're so old and can be rusty or fatigued at critical surfaces, which can lead to the parts not seating correctly upon assembly.
I've been around the biz long enough to have seen when these rims were still in normal service, and they weren't easy to take apart or put back together. We had a "tire cage" where they were placed to air them up upon assembly, and a locking air chuck that secured onto the valve stem so you didn't have your hand in the cage when the air was applied to the tube.
Even then, you still had to be careful to see that the split rim seated onto the rest of the wheel and then ... just for a check on the security of the installation ... rap on the split rim with a sledgehammer to give it an opportunity to come apart if it wasn't fully seated.
There were a number of local deaths due to tire busters not being careful around these rims ... I know of several that died when they were inflating the tires without a cage and were kneeling onto the rim. One fellow, at a Sears Tire center, died when the tube inflated just enough to pop the tire bead onto the split rim and it came straight up into his face. Another, at a local truck line, died when the split rim came apart as he was rolling the assembly out of the safety cage. Another, on a road service call, didn't have a safety cage and trusted that the chain he wrapped around the wheel would keep the split rim from blowing too far if it came apart; it still blew apart enough to hit him in the forehead when he was kneeling over the tire to inflate it.
As others have pointed out ... if you are not trained and experienced with these split rims and don't have a safety cage and proper tools to work on them ... Don't do it. While you may be able to mess around with the rim and get it apart with a couple of prybars and tire hammer, and get everything loosely back together with a new tube, flap, and tire ... there is a tremendous risk involved if you just happen to not get it right.
I need to know if anyone knows how to get a tire off of a rim that appears to have a ring of some sort holding it together can you tell me how get this kind of rims apart.THANKS
If you don't already know how to disassemble a split rim then KNOW IT'S NO JOB FOR A NEWBIE UNLESS YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!!
Leave this job to the pros with the right equipment.
Throw a heavy blanket over the rim while filling it. It's the pressure that kills.
Wrong. Very Wrong.
It's the impact of the tire as it pops up onto the bead seating surface of the split ring that is the problem if the split ring isn't captured properly at the rim. The split ring then flies off the rim with tremendous force.
If you're in the way, like if you're holding an air chuck onto the tube stem, filling the tube and waiting for enough pressure to build up so the tire pops onto the bead surface ... you will be taken very much by surprise. At a minimum, your arm is right there by the split ring.
It's not like you can "jump" out of the way if things don't look right, any more than you can jump out of the way of a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun from a distance of a few inches away.
And a heavy blanket isn't going to stop that ring when it's blown off. There's an old tire shop not far from me that still does split rims ... and their tire safety cage is pretty bent up from blown off rims. It's built out of heavy gauge steel, and it's been welded up to repair it several times. I'd bet it's one heck of a lot stronger than any "heavy blanket".
In the years where I had to work on split rims, I never had one come apart. But the reports of injuries from full time tire busters were enough to make me very cautious and make doubly sure that every surface was clean and that the rings appeared to snap into position when I assembled them. I never stood on the split ring side of the wheel when I rolled it out of the safety cage, and I always rapped on the split ring with a sledge all around the edge of it when it was coming out of the cage. If the OP doesn't have the right tools, these aren't anything to mess around with.
Not talking bed sheets here. No sense in building or buying a "cage" device if you can protect yourself with simple measures. A big moving blanket folded up a few times with a couple 80lb sand bags on top would do the trick just fine. The ring may come off like a bullet but it isn't shaped like one.
I'm assuming we aren't talking excavator scale tires here...
Not talking bed sheets here. No sense in building or buying a "cage" device if you can protect yourself with simple measures. A big moving blanket folded up a few times with a couple 80lb sand bags on top would do the trick just fine. The ring may come off like a bullet but it isn't shaped like one.
I'm assuming we aren't talking excavator scale tires here...
Having seen the imprint on the old cinder block shop wall at Ryder's 1900 31st Street Shop in Denver ... about 100' away from the tire service area ... when one of the former tiremen didn't use the cage and a split rim on a 22" tire came apart ...
I guess I have a lot more respect for the hazards of servicing these than you do. Unless the OP has a lock-on air chuck, they're still going to be right at the split ring with an arm hanging on to the air chuck to fill the tube. Their face won't be very far away, either, from the flying parts if the split rim does come apart on inflation.
These units are long out of service for good reasons. The worst were the Firestone 3-piece split rims ... which were the first to go. The Dayton two-piece rims are pretty rare to find, even on old trailers. With rims this old and a flawed design, it's a real guess about whether or not the ring will cage properly and be secure. Is it worth the risk to the OP?
Split rims have been illegal or years, because of the danger. If you don't have the proper equipment, don't mess with it.. Unless you want to carry your head home in your hand...!
Using a blanket would do nothing for a tire exploding under pressure, but you could use it to mop up the blood...!
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