Harbor Freight manual Tire Changer review

[Music] how's it going everybody my name is Dave Whipple and you're watching Busch radical if your life's anything like mine it's full of flat tires tires that need to be receded tires that have leaks tires with nails tires that need to come off and go back on today what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a look at the Harbor Freight portable tire changer and what this is is it's a manual tire changer you bolt down to your floor and you can take a tire off the rim you can put it back on the rim you can break the beads got a bead breaker and if you're like me it should solve a ton of problems that you have in your life as I can't stand going into town and wasting a couple hours just to get one tire fixed if I could do it at home I'd be so much happier we're gonna take this machine bolt it all together bolt it down to the floor and we're gonna change a tire for the very first time a real tire from my daughter's van that happens to have a flat tire which is why I bought the machine in the first place we're gonna see if it's worth the money they're asking which is very little if it's easy to use if it's worth having if it's good construction I'm gonna give you guys a good solid review on it stay tuned this is what comes in the box obviously it's that little stand it's the tire changing tool itself you also get the nuts and bolts and of course the real important part of it the bar that you're gonna use to do most of the work first thing I'm gonna do I'm gonna remove this pin and take out this shaft that holds the breaker assembly on get that out of the way always work other than following the picture about the only thing you want to make sure you want to make sure that the long part of this arm goes on the side that the breaker arm goes on that's about it everything else is kind of self-explanatory [Music] [Music] it only took a couple minutes to bolt the base together and I was ready to go and just like that the tire changer is assembled now what I need to do is I need to pick the spot I don't want to mount it to the floor this looks good I'm just gonna take a construction pencil and I'm gonna cut enough off each side that it'll drop down through those holes like so I'm gonna make sure I'm straight up and down get myself a mark once all your spots are marked give them an extra line cuz honestly they just look like rocks in this old concrete just for good measure oh boy good grief give it a minute for that to settle down oh my goodness you think the vacuum would get the dust out of that hole but you'd be wrong now this is the mounting hardware we're gonna use these are drop-in anchors made by the redhead company now the idea with these anchors is you hammer drill a hole down into the concrete you tap the anchor down and then you use the setting tool to expand the bottom of the anchor so it's flush with the concrete but it's got a threaded insert that takes a bolt this is a wonderful invention put the breaker arm back on now we're ready to get ourselves a flat tire and throw it on here and see how it works I have no idea how user-friendly it is I don't know that it's gonna work the way it's supposed to we're going to find out together now this particular tire is actually not bad the problem is it had this valve stem failure this Chrysler Town and Country came with a two-part valve stem the stem from the inside and then a locking nut collar on the outside right if you look over there you can see the hole where the valve stem actually fell inside the tire I could use a little bit more space make that far off well it definitely feels like it's got plenty of leverage still not want to get it done though you're a little girl and that helps [Music] [Music] so the first side of the fire broke down pretty easy took a couple tries that moved a couple times the other side is taking its sweet time coming off so I'm gonna do what I should have done in the first place and douse it down with some soapy water let's throw the tire up top Co comes off all right make sure this pin goes through one of your lug nut holes I'll hit this guy with some soapy water that was walking apart Allison tires loose on one side we need to get down here and catch that other lip get that other part of the tire going put the bar up against the post put it up against your hip and just walk around it no problem here's the problem yesterday my daughter called me from a gas station and this valves them believe it or not this is a valve stem this valve stem has a collar on it and it's a threaded collar holds the whole thing together and that collar head corroded and fallen off once you put the air Chuck honor two went and it pushed it into the tire so that valve stem pushed into the tire of course all the air came out of it what we're gonna do today I'm gonna put a valve stem in there that makes sense a good old-fashioned rubber valve stem and this goofy tire pressure sensor thing from from the 25th century I don't want anything to do with that joke so this is how we're gonna fix that tire with a good old twentieth-century rubber valve stem no rocket science here we'll just put this sucker in place oh boy this other spaceship tire sensor pressure thing was and then we will be good so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna clean up the bead area of the tire and of course the bead area of the wheel we'll put this thing back together and see how easy that process is all right second verse same as the first tank I really know how this goes well well getting it off was super easy putting it back on honestly I don't really know what I'm doing so well the tires back on I don't know that I did it exactly the way I'm supposed to I just kind of levered it back on with the bar I'm probably using the wrong part of the tool there's a hook on this end it kind of gets underneath the tire and when you lever it it seems to be putting it back on but it's very hard to keep that upright it wants to twist so I don't know if I'm doing that right but the important part of these tires back on I don't make sure I don't have any paint chips from this tool here caught underneath the edge of this rim and we'll see if we can get it back up on the beat right now there's no Schrader valve inside this valve stem and I don't have an air Chuck tip that will put a ton of air in here really fast like you need to do to get it on the bead I'm just gonna try to use an airgun nozzle to get a lot of air in there at once see how that works Oh well that worked like a charm came right up on the beat popped right into place all I got to do is stuff a little Schrader valve in this valve stem pump it up a tire pressure and throw it back on the band I think we're good to go there's my Schrader valve here's my homemade Schrader valve tool made out of a nail how's the tires aired up the Schrader valves in it I'm gonna spray that beat down with some more soapy water just to check for leaks everything's looking good no leaks on the one side no leaks on the other side I think it's good to go best part about having it set up this way is I can pull these bolts and move this machine back into a corner of the garage where it's totally out of the way it doesn't even take up any space and it doesn't have to stay mounted right in the middle of the garage where you would put it to work on it so there you have it that was my very first time using this Harbor Freight manual tire changer the fact that you can buy this machine for under $35 set it up at home and take care of your own tire issues that's absolutely amazing this is a technology that's old this is something we've lost as a country the manual stuff that we relied on 70 years ago it wasn't difficult to change this tire it would have been a lot easier with a real pneumatic tire changing machine those are thousands and thousands of dollars and the only people that really buy those are tire shops who are doing tires day in and day out and we get this mental picture if that's how you need to do it that's the equipment that you need to get that job done when in fact a tool like this that's less than $40 can do the job just fine I've got four rigs in Alaska I've got four rigs here in Michigan there's always a bad tire always there's also always a bald tire there's a there's just I'm up to my eyeballs and tires I don't think I ever want to be in a situation from here on out where I don't have one of these machines even the first time using this not knowing anything about changing tires it was very easy to use this tool I would say you have to bolt it down there's no way around bolting it down I would always say use soapy water when you're breaking down the bead that was the thing that really made breaking the bead on the second side of the tire possible because it didn't want to come off but as soon as it had some soapy water around there it popped right down off the bead I would have said the tool itself it feels very solid once you bolt it down it doesn't have any wiggle to it at all it doesn't feel like it's gonna go anywhere this bar it didn't have any any give to it at all it's definitely not gonna give you any the only negative I think I could say in regards to this tire changer is the bar that you used to break the bead it doesn't quite have enough clearance to get past that center post like it should but you could feel it binding and then you push past it and so I've already knocked a paint off that center post not that that makes any difference I could care less so in regards to the Harbor Freight portable tire changer I would have to give it a gigantic thumbs up it does something I've always wanted to be able to do at home it works very easy you don't have to know much anything you'll figure it out I figured it out it gives you that ability to do something that you you would otherwise have to pay somebody else to do and for me that's everything the more of that I can have in my life you know I to get that one tire fixed I would have had to spend an hour and a half going to town and waiting to get the tire fixed and driving back and putting it back on the van myself here I spent about an hour and a half but I actually took a tool I I did all the installation I put the thing all together and I changed the tire in that hour and a half and then next time I need to change the tire it's gonna be 25 minutes and the time after that probably 20 and ultimately I'll probably get it down to where I can do it 15 minutes or so gigantic thumbs up on this tire changer less than 40 bucks even with the bolts I had to buy to mount it down and the concrete inserts it's basically ready to go it's ready to do what it's supposed to be able to do and I've spent less than forty dollars on it the next time I change a tire this thing will have paid for itself and it's built solid enough that I can tell right now I'm not gonna break it it's a good machine and it's dirt cheap so if you have a homestead you've got a remote property you have ATVs and farm equipment and trucks and cars and you like to have the the ability to do this at home I couldn't recommend this more I've only had it for a day it's halfway paid for itself and I think it works fantastic it's easy to use I couldn't be happier so the Harbor Freight manual tire changer I'm gonna give it a huge thumbs up you get a lot of machine for just a little bit you're not gonna break it that's gonna do what you want it to thank you guys so much for watching Busch radical my name is Dave Whipple and be radically see you soon [Music]

Channel: Bushradical

Views: 862,981

Rating: 4.8019514 out of 5

Keywords: Harbor Freight Tire changer, harbor freight review, harbor freight manual tire changer, harbor freight manual, harbor freight, tire changer, tire machine, tire changer review

Id: CWdoTUCm5qw

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020