After my not so local fitter (30 miles away) wants £55 to change and balance tyres for 2 lose wheels I have decided to look into doing this myself. Found a few options, top at the moment is the Sealey tc965 with a Sealey tc963 and a Sealey balancer. Total cost is around £350 ish, give or take. After that its about £700 for a semi auto kit and then the balancer on top of that. Does anyone have experience in this area and can give me advice on what to buy and possibly where from? I have 3 sets of wheels to do at the moment so this might be a bit of an investment. Many thanks Steve
do a search,been a few threads on ths.but can be done for half that money,and as jimbo,you'll save at least 10k a year
I am in Cambridge, but I can't find anyone locally to change them, our local one was called Wheelfit seems to have closed a couple of months ago for a "refit" and never seems to have opened again, gutted! I now have to go to Bury St Edmunds, so a fivers worth of fuel in the car to pay another £55 a pair to change and balance, so for each pair its going to set me back £60 and I have 3 pairs to change asap. I have searched the threads and found people use the Sealey stuff, but was wondering if it does any damage to alloy wheels in the process?
Try search on TyreLeader for cheaper places to fit - e.g. this one at £12.50 a wheel http://www.tyreleader.co.uk/fitting...K&radius=20&felgen=&mont[]=f&mont[]=m&veh[]=m
Awesome, didn't know you could search on there, though they are 25 miles away in Huntingdon, at least its closer than Bury
Re the gear. The Sealey tyre changer you linked is the same one I found, but it doesn't mark the wheels, that's down to the bars, although I use this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/manual-ty...453?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item28001101f5 You do need to invest in valves, weights & tyres soap, but then it's just down to which balancer you use.
Strangely enough that bar was already on my watch list along with 50 valves and a 5KG tub of soap, forgot about that weights though
We just picked up the sealey tc 965 and tc 963 for 235ish quid inc del brand new in sealey promotions, the 963 bar does have some pretty hefty weight to it rite enuff not sure if the dude on eBay sells a lighter bar as it looks to be made of alloy rather than the steel bar of the sealey. As for the balancer I picked up a sealey replica from Germany a while back for £40.
WTF to the price and yo why your not doing it yourself. Cheapest is a garden spade, 2 michelin type tyre levers, 3 rim protectors, fairy liquid, 20mm rigid rube across a rear paddock stand and seld adhesive wheel weights. Boom done. Search youtube for either Bongo or bike tyre changing. Watch and learn. 5 mins a tyre easy peasy.
I bought from a company called Cooks of Bedford. Machine http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sealey-TC...692?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item19fea824a4 The bars have sold out so prob best just going with the dude Gary linked to earlier for that. There is a slightly cheaper sealey copy for 145 quid here. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Manual-Mi...a&pid=100005&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=111646614692&rt=nc
I have used and have the lever changing option you posted but the use of the tyre machine and bar is so so much quicker and safer of the wheels ie scratching and chipping.
Does anyone know what valve number I need for a motorbike wheel? TR412 or TR413 or something else????
Well thats the bulk of it bought now, just the valves to go, so if anyone can help with a part number or ebay link that would be great. Thank you to everyone so far.
The tr412 valves are better suited to bikes as they are shorter than the 413's. They help with getting the airline in to the valves without being too close to the discs on the front. But if it's for your own bike I would recommend going with the angled Bridgeport valves (11.3mm size) which makes inflating the tyres a lot easier.
Brilliant, thank you, just the info I needed. Bought 2 sets of 90 degree Bridgeport Valves for our own bikes as well as a bag of 50 x 413's for when everyone else wants theirs doing, lol
Just have to wait for it all to turn up now, in the end I went for a much cheaper balancer as I figured it don't do much other than have bearings, so paid £29.89 for this one in the end. No doubt someone will tell me I did wrong buying the cheaper one and I will end up regretting being a cheap skate, lol £29.89 Balancer http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131329289976?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
Not to piss on your cheap parade lol but the same unit can be found lil cheaper on the eBay...... Anyway the unit you bought is pretty much a clone of the sealey unit and similar to the unit I have the only thing you might wanna add to yours is a bubble level like in link below to make sure the balancer is level before flinging a wheel on it. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ROUND-SUR...357?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c985f2185
