Any of you gentlemen have a set? I'm tired of having to haul tires and wheels in for mounting, so I'm pretty sure I need a set in my life.
These to be specific.
They are $1325 delivered. It shouldn't take more than a year or two for them to pay for themselves.
Recommend? Stay far away?
Would it be worthwhile to to spend the extra $500 to get this machine with the bead blaster and other attachments?
I wish I had an answer for you. In theory I want a set, in practice I have no room for it and at approx $20/set of four at the little shop I go to, $12 of which is disposal fee I have to pay anyway, it would take forever to pay off.
In reply to RedGT:
I'm paying $20+ per tire, and the closest shop to me has decided he will no longer mount race tires.
I think Pat bought some? He saw it the same way and went for it. Hopefully he sees this
No personal experience with the above machines but I'd spring for the one with the extra attachments.
Functionally the top tire machine looks very similar to the "monty s410" tire changer I bought used off craigslist.
I will say that without the helper arm and attachments of the second machines you posted we often find hoosiers and other stiff sidewall tires can require a second pair of hands to get new tires on. With those attachments they'd be one man jobs.
I'm not sure the local market is for you but around MI you can find an older used tire machine and balancer for around the asking price of those new ones. Which it's still pretty easy to find parts for old Coat, snap on etc type machines. Not sure how easy parts are to source on the ebay machines unless they're close enough clones to the name brand stuff to share parts.
In reply to klodkrawler05:
I've been keeping an eye out for used machines for a while, but what I'm finding are $1500 tire machines and $1000 balancers, that have been sitting outside for awhile or really old horizontal tire machines.
Those are dangerously tempting. I will keep those in mind when I have a garage.
That thing has way more moving parts than it needs. The one I used at my grandpa's tire shop in the early 70's had a very simple two way air actuator that broke the bottom bead on the way up and the top one on the way down.
Then a hand held 3.5 foot long bar set up with one type of wedge for dis-mounting and another type for remounting. ( We did have to fire some people because they could not remember which end was which!)
Did the job and lasted about 20 years of daily use until my dad bought one of the more automated ones
In reply to jharry3:
The older horizontal machines are pretty hard on aluminum wheels unfortunately. They can be had pretty cheap though, because nobody wants them.
jharry3 wrote: That thing has way more moving parts than it needs. The one I used at my grandpa's tire shop in the early 70's had a very simple two way air actuator that broke the bottom bead on the way up and the top one on the way down. Then a hand held 3.5 foot long bar set up with one type of wedge for dis-mounting and another type for remounting. ( We did have to fire some people because they could not remember which end was which!) Did the job and lasted about 20 years of daily use until my dad bought one of the more automated ones
Well, 70 and 80 series tires were a lot easier to change. Could probably do them with a set of motorcycle tire irons.
All those extra moving parts make swapping low profile and/or stiff sidewall race tires much easier. The bead blast is pretty handy, and not just for stretched tires.
I have the greg smith Atlas tire mounter/balancer. This Combo
They are worth getting. Just the no longer needing to run out to the tire shop makes it worthwhile not even counting the money that I might have saved. Tires come in late on Friday for a Saturday race? No problem.
The bead blaster I have used a little bit but it is not that big a deal if you don't have it for most tires. One of my friends with the same machine swears that his Cheetah bead seater works much better than the bead blaster.
The assist arm I think is worth the extra $500. I have been thinking about buying the assist arms for mine but have not gotten around to it.
Mine are Sunrise branded, which look exactly like the Triumph ones. They were $1895 shipped. The only "problem" i had was the pulley set screws weren't tight on the balancer motor shaft so I pulled them and reinstalled with loctite.
I've done everything from 13" fiero wheels to 20x12 boyds with pilot cup tires and everything in between. The worst thing is that your friends think you are a tire shop, and assume being friends they are entitled to not pay to use your machines. I have had mine for 2 years and have done enough tire work for myself and had enough people pay me $10 each(local rates are $20-50 depending, i got charged $100 to put a pair of 315's on corvette wheels at the big tire shop and the middle eastern used tire guy who doesn't change valve stems and uses used wheel weights charged me $80/4) that my machines are pretty well paid for.
The bead blaster has never helped, i built a cheetah for stubborn tires. There is a thread on building it in the shop forum I believe.
patgizz wrote: The worst thing is that your friends think you are a tire shop, and assume being friends they are entitled to not pay to use your machines.
Quoted for truth, that's been an uphill battle too, I don't mind helping my friends but the new "friends" you acquire by virtue of having the machines are different. and it's hard to always know where that line is.
That said my machines have almost paid for themselves according to the "tire change jar" that sits next to the machines. Once they've fully paid for themselves I suspect I'll find myself busy and unable to mount tires for quite some time.
At first I thought that is what my friends have, but it seems whoever is making the cheapo ones is just painting them the same colors.
My friends got the Greg Smith one, which also seems relatively cheap.
I had a horizontal machine at the shop where I interned. "Not a fan" should be a sufficient description.
Semi related, looking at different machines I had access to in vocational school, how much for a brake lathe? I was the best in my class at turning rotors and drums.
Here's the homemade cheetah thread
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/tech-tips/homemade-cheetah-bead-sealer-for-30/101356/page1/
Confession: I've never painted it. It still works awesome though. I kinda want to start a fire and put flour in the nozzle because of Knurled though.
My old boss had an eBay tire changer for 15+ years and just replaced it last year with another one. I've used them numerous times and have no complaints. The tire balancers worked fine too.
If you were going to use them if you owned a tire shop, I'd advise against it, but from a hobby side, they will work well.
I have one of those exact same Chinese balancers and an old hofmann machine. The changer needed a lot of rubber seals and lines, some mechanical work. If I had to do it again, I'd buy a newer, nicer one with an assist arm. Low profile 18s are a pita to change.
I highly recommend you practice changing low profile tires on some wheels that are already damaged, or you don't care about very much. Like everything else fun in life, use lots of lube.
Addendum: use lots of lube to dismount runflats. Most things with a 50 aspect ratio or better will come off dry no problem, but if the sidewalls are short and stiff, you're gonna need every advantage you can get.
In reply to Cactus:
Use lots of lube regardless of dismounting or mounting 
But seriously I've seen many beads rip because of not applying enough tire lube to them.
I've pretty much decided on the second set. I'll sit down and order them tomorrow or Monday.
i did discover, when i bought mine, that amazon was best for regular weights and ebay was best for sticky weights. with prime, it doesn't matter that they are sending me boxes of lead, they just show up with free shipping.
not sure if your balancer will be like this, but mine was set up metric from the factory. setting it to ounces was a horrible process of pressing 3 buttons exactly at the same time. when i mean exactly, i mean it took me over an hour of trying (you must switch off after you eff up) to get it. once set it stays that way forever or until set back, even when unplugged.
i think i want to get an assist arm but if they aren't cheap enough i'll make one.
SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: But seriously I've seen many beads rip because of not applying enough tire lube to them.
I ripped one dismounting a tire I wanted to reuse. All knowledge costs something. That bit cost me a decent Michelin.
In reply to patgizz:
I was wondering why the add specifically mentioned that the ballancer was preset to American measurements.
Our 7 year old CEMB just got thorough rebuilding, including all new soft lines as well as the air cylinder for breaking beads. Other than the cylinder, all the soft lines were commonly available parts.
For your learning pleasure (yeah - that's me you're looking at):
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ftVMXNNTbsA?list=PLyvqzPNIsO2nf-gpJKHOGrZGeBPeakl47
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