Mounting rally tires

[paktinat]

Is there anything special about mounting rally tires that I should know about.

I need to mount some tires but if the bargin basement people(i.e. walmart?) can't handle it, I'd like to know before they destroy one of them.

[Ty Ty]

Rally tires have a very very stiff sidewall and require a more high tech expensive tire mounter to do it the right way. I doubt Walmart has one.

Without the more advanced machine, the bead of the tire can be damaged or destroyed in the process of trying to get it on the wheel.

[noisycricket]

It can be/is a pain in the ass. Mounting rally tires is like mounting runflat tires, which is not far from the truth since a lot of runflat technology is descended from rally tires.

Ask them if they can mount super low profile tires and/or runflat tires. If that doesn't scare them then either they know what they are doing, or have no idea what they're getting into.

(Does this mean you found a set of wheels? No worries if you have, it just means more for me :) )

[paktinat]

if you still have 4x100 for my vw let me know asap so i dont buy some from someone else.

this was for the subaru for now, I found some used m4s until the silverstones come through to go on the TD wheels i picked up.

I'll ask around about the run flat/low profile. I figured that they would be hard to mount, but sometimes when I "figure" something I am very wrong.

thanks.

[MrToad]

I've been asking my tire shop to use tire cement on the beads. Dirt/sand/gravel still gets forced between the bead and the rim and a tire goes down but it seems to happen less often. Choose a good shop you like working with because you'll be going back frequently, especially as you collect more wheels and tires.
JT

[CJM]

I had my rally tires mounted at America's Tire/Discount Tire. They didn't have any problems.

[LGT-FST]

Most Walmart stores have corgie tyre machines and if the tech is quilified they should be able to mount rally rubber. I have been advised against using bead sealant on rally tyres. In 2 and a half years on rally tyres I have never had a tyre go down and the Audi usually sets ftd every where it goes. We run 29 lbs of air. Warren

[katnip]

Most Walmart stores have corgie tyre machines and if the tech is quilified they should be able to mount rally rubber. I have been advised against using bead sealant on rally tyres. In 2 and a half years on rally tyres I have never had a tyre go down and the Audi usually sets ftd every where it goes. We run 29 lbs of air. Warren

and Warren drives like a friken madman. and the only person I know that can rip the studs out of snows in one rallycross.:shocked: (Our rallycar lost none after 40 stage miles)

[paktinat]

Thanks for all the good info guys.

[Gravel Crew Rally Team]

Just a piece of advise for the tire guy. Put the tires out in the sun for a bit to "soften" the side walls. It helps a lot. I have done quite a bit of installing rally tires and during the winter we actually built a oven for the tires to help with the installation. Good luck

[SoCalBoomer]

Ooooh - good idea!

Pak - I found a place near me that does truck tires - like TRUCK trucks. . .semis and such. . . they laugh in the face of my rally tires! :D And they thought it was so funny, they charged me $10 for all four. . .

You might find a place like that

[9one9racing.com]

+1 for discount tire.

I actually mounted 4 tires on a set of non rally rims. easy stuff, just like mounting normal tires IMO (ive got experience mounting tires).

then i had 1 rally tire that was on a rally rim that needed to be dismounted. talk about pain in the ass.

Just tires couldnt do it, local 4X4 shop couldnt do it, discount tires did.

they had a thinner duck head and it worked, it gave them a fight, but they did it.

then i went back to discount to mount 4 rally tires onto 4 alum. subaru wheels.
no problem for them at all.

so yeah, mounting the tires isnt a big deal, anyone should be able to do it, but dismounting might be an issue (if its on rally wheels).

[wr-ecks]

It must depend on the tire because there are a few local Stage rally-ers around town who come to me to have their tire work done. Ive never had a hard time. Runflats and super low-pro's are much more difficult to deal with.

[paktinat]

thanks for the input guys.
It ended up being more of an issue for a few shops about the lack of DOT approval, even though I wasn't driving away on the rubber, they didn't want to touch it.

but at least I know of one place now that is cool and pretty cheap.

[Team Illuminata]

+1 for warming them up
+1 for using someone you trust, look on our "used" pages for what can happen if a looney does it.

Here at TIM we use our teeth to mount rally tires LOL.

Actually, we use a high end service co called Auto Europe. Class act, never messed up a wheel for us yet. Have also had good luck with my local oil change place but I would only ever take my own rims there. I've also heard that places that do a lot of commercial truck tires or SUV 22" bling stuff tend to have a guy with big biceps who can handle rally tires. I think here is also a thread on Special Stage where a guy was asked not to come back if memory serves.

[409industries]

I had my rally tires mounted at America's Tire/Discount Tire. They didn't have any problems.

Me too. America's Tire / Discount Tire did not have any problem mounting 6 of my Hankooks on TD's