Changing a tire... Not "pull the flat off and put the spare on", I mean
"take the old tire off the rim and put a new one on."
The guys at the shop with their umpty-hundred (or more) dollar machines
make it look *SO* easy...

In something like 90 seconds, they've got the old one off the rim, the
new in its place, and there's that satisfying combination of "THUMP" and
"POP" as the beads seat and your nice new tire starts inflating.

Then you hand over the 10 dollar bill and roll your fresh tire to the
car. (or you let them put it on the car for you)

Betcha there ain't many these days that've thought about just how labor
intensive the task is without those fancy air or electric powered
machines.

Well, today I had to do a lot more than *THINK* about it... For the
first time, I had to actually *DO* it. And boy, was it an adventure!

After I got home from my run this morning and grabbed a bite to eat, I
went out to find that I had a tire with a separated belt that was going
to start "flapping" any time - I'm amazed that it hadn't already, truth
be told... I'm also amazed that it didn't affect the handling enough for
me to notice - The damage to the tire was massive. But all I actually
noticed was a tiny bit of "rumble" from the rear. Nothing that couldn't
easily be mistaken for normal on the recently chip-sealed road I was
driving on.

Of course, it's the 4th of July - So if there's a tire shop anywhere
within 50 miles that's open, I wasn't able to get them to pick up the
phone to confirm that they were.

That tire needed replacing *RIGHT NOW* - It simply CAN'T wait until
tomorrow - The car *MUST* be on the road tonight at 1 AM, and has to
cover 300+ miles. The donut just isn't going to cut the mustard, since
much of it is 50+ driving to make the deadlines. Never mind that the
roads the car has to travel vary from "Excellent" (Freeway) to  "decent"
(some feeder roads), to "shitty" (A couple of fairly ugly dirt roads),
to  "You gotta be joking, right? You're actually gonna drive across
THAT?!?!?" (A strip of road they call "Deadwood Avenue" that sports
craters you could nearly lose a volkswagen in, interspersed with rocks
you could practically hollow out and live inside.

So I *MUST* have a good, full-size, full-speed tire, and I *MUST* have
it before 11:00 tonight.

So what do I have to work with? Hmmm... OK, I've got a tire the right
size that was set aside to be used as a spare when I got a nice brand
new set a couple years ago - It's been sitting in the back of the garage
gathering dust ever since, but it looks to still be "healthy" enough -
No significant weather-checking, still nice and flexible, with no
observable stiffness anywhere, it's got tread - Not as much as a brand
new tire would have, of course, but this thing hasn't been anywhere near
brand new for years, but it isn't showing any wear bars yet, and it
looks to be in good enough shape to make it a few hundred miles, at a
minimum. And as a bonus, when it came off the car, it was holding air.

I've got a 3 foot crowbar, and I've got two pickle forks, and I've got a
4 pound copper hammer, and I've got a 20 gallon Sears air compressor.

And I've got most of the day free and clear...

Well, let's see... the theory is "break the beads, then start on one
side and drop it into the groove in the wheel to give some slack, then
lift the bead up and over the rim, repeat for the other side, and we've
got a naked rim laying there.

OK... Let's give it a shot - It can't be *THAT* hard, can it?

Famous last words, lemme tell ya!

After cussing the air in about a half-mile radius to a nice deep blue
color during the course of something like 45 minutes, I *FINALLY* got
one side off the rim.

Repeated the process, finding it even more awkward than the first due to
having to go "through" the first side to get to the other side (I
coaught myself before maing the mistake of putting each bead outside its
side of the rim... I think if I would have managed THAT blooper, I would
have had to give up out of sheer frustration...)

Got the second side off - It was more awkward, but having learned a
couple things from the first side, it actually went a good bit quicker -
Only took me about 20 minutes, and the air only turned a faint bluish
shade out to a hundred yards or so.

Then came reversing the process with the replacement tire - What fun...
NOT! The first side went on just fine... Maybe ten minutes of grunting,
sweating (did I mention that the temperature was/is hovering around 99F
today?) and struggling with it. Second side was a bit trickier - About
20 minutes 'cause I keept getting good progress, only to have "the other
end" of the "on" section decide to jump off as I got the "working" end
close to the halfway point. AUGH!!!!

Finally got the second side on, and took a breather before trying to get
it inflated. Knew I was looking at some "fun" there, so fired up the
compressor and made sure it was dialed up to max output, and let it fill
Once it was done, re-soaped the beads, and started trying to get 'em
seated. *NO FUN AT ALL*

They simply refused to get enough of a "bite" to seat. Hokay... How to
cope with this... If I can just get one side in place, I should be able
to "jiggle" the other and get it to work - I think...

Did just that - Used the end of the crowbar to reach inside and mash the
bead on the side away from the valve stem against the rim, slowly
working my way around the whole thing. Once that was in place, tried
applying air again. Still no joy... With the one side seated against the
rim, there was too much of a gap to get a seal on the valve-stem side,
and no amount of "wrestling" with it would close things up enough to pop
the bead into place. Fought with it for the better part of half an hour,
then had a brainstorm... Let's put the tire/rim combo on top of the tire
that I just took off, then stand on the rim with the air-chuck clipped
to the valve stem. That should mash the gap shut enough to get some
pressure inside to finish the job. Hmmm... Not *QUITE* working as
expected, but it's REAL close... What happens if I squat down and try to
"pick up" the tire while standing on the rim? Give it a try... Suddenly,
the whoosh of air blowing *THROUGH* turned into the blessed sound of air
going *IN* and actually staying there. Unclip the air-chuck and inspect
things - Excellent... Bead has made a "sort of" seal - The inner part is
in solid contact with the edge of the "well" in the wheel, forming
enough of a seal to hold air, even though the bead is at least 2 inches
from being where it belongs up against the seat. Apply more air. Bead
starts moving, then suddenly I hear that magical *POP*/*THUMP* as it
jumps into place, fully seated where it belongs! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!

Blow it up to about 20 pounds, dump some soapy water on both beads, and
see no bubbles forming - Bead is tight on both sides - YEAH, BABY!!!

Take a moment to do bit of "Who's yer daddy?!?!?" victory dance, then
blow it up to the full 30 pounds and bolt it back onto the car, with a
sense of accomplishment that rivals the time I succesfully swapped
engines in a '90-something Ford Explorer with only a handful of
photocopied Haynes manual pages to guide me!

Never had to "hand change" a tire before, although I've seen it done
once when a delivery truck caught a flat in our driveway. The guy who
came out and did the repair job had the semi-sized tire off the rim,
patched, back on the rim, and blown up in under half an hour - I was
*VERY* impressed. After taking something like three hours to do the task
myself on a "car-sized" tire, I'm even MORE impressed at the guy's
abilities. Of course, he *DID* have all the proper tire-spoons and such
to make life easier, but even so, I now know first-hand that it takes a
definite quantity of "grunt" to make it happen, as well as the proper
tools and knowledge of how to do it.

Maybe next time I'll get it done in under an hour...

Here's hoping that "next time" is a long, Long, *LONG*, ways off...