Motorcycle tire changing mount and demount bar.
Change your own motorcycle tires painlessly.
AKA No-Scuff or DAVE BAR
If you are sick and tired of using tire irons then please read on!
History behind the No-scufftiretool
I started out using tire irons for changing my motorcycle tires for one, because I like doing things myself and two, because I hate paying someone to do something I know I can do my self for free. However, it didn't take me long to figure out that TIRE IRONS, fingers and other miscellaneous body parts were not compatible when used together. Not to mention scratched and or damaged rims from slips ups, oops and oh &%#@'s. After a very frustrating day changing a rear tire on a Valkyrie I started searching the web for mount/demount tire tools and found a few of them that got my attention. I was all set to purchase one of the prefab bars and then my inner cheapskate got the best of me. I knew I could fab something as good or better. I figured I could make a few extra bars for some local riders that showed interest which would cover the cost of materials and I'd end up getting a free one. Free is good you know. After making the first batch and having a bunch of happy customers I kept getting requests from other riders wanting me to build a tire tool for them. After four batches of seven I decided I'd start fabricating the bars on a regular basis, hence this web site.
Handy and (cheap!) aid for easier tire removal
Here is a link to a picture of a tire removal aid that I highly recommend to anyone wanting to change a motorcycle tire with my tire tool or for that matter any of the other manual tire removal tools on the market. It will save you a few minuites of frustration especially with stiff wall tires. I do my best to avoid frustration of any kind if I can help it. Using this tool will also help prevent damaging your demount tip! If you don't have the tire bead up
high enough when you flip the No-scuff over 90 degress it's possible to damage the tip on
the tool.
Fabrication of the No-scufftiretool
Before I built my first batch I
examined the various bars available and made
one that I thought incorporated the best attributes of each of them. I
didn't
like the solid square bar on a couple of the prefab bars, but I liked
the mount
end. A
buddy of mine had one of the XX pre-fab bars and he was very open
about
what he
didn't like about it. He also happened to be my first customer and
helped test the proto-type. His only
complaint was when mounting stiff wall tires the XX bar had a tendency
to pop
out
on the last 20% of the mount procedure and he ended up having to use
spoons to finish the job. I decided to
use a mount end similar to the mojo/wikco mount end, combined with a
demount bobbin that is
similar to one of the other prefab bars. The delrin tips that I made were
initially reinforced with a 1/4" case hardened
bolt. This soon changed to a 5/16" case hardened bolt. Of course
the 1" round tubing
was a must due to it's
light
weight and strength vs a solid piece of square steel stock. There
really is no advantage to using a solid piece of steel and 1" solid
stock costs more. My first
batch of these bars I used some 1/8" thickness tubing (.750 ID) which
was WAY
overkill for the intended purpose. Bigger isn't always better and most
times it's more expensive as it was in this case. The most common pipe
available has an ID of .840 and is readily available at most places
that carry cold
rolled steel and this is what I ended up using.
The tire tool I build is pretty
labor intensive requiring lathe work for the
demount and mount ends. I do all of the fabrication my self (with the
exception of the new No-Mar demount tips) to cut
down on expense which in turn increases profit and reduces the price to
the
customer.
This also enables me to control
the
quality of the product. If I screw it up then I have no one to blame
but you
know who. My dog doesn't understand when I blame him for my screw ups
and he gets this puzzled look on his face as he heads to his dog house
to
hide thinking he's in trouble again. The
new patented No-Mar demount
ends are made
from UHMW, which is self
lubricating. What makes the No-Mar demount tip so strong is a case
hardened 1/2" steel rod
pressed inside the UHMW. The 1/2" case
hardened
steel rod reinforces the area of the demount tip where it has proven to
be the weakest and that is where the bar and the demount tip join
together. To keep the demount tip end small in diameter, No-Mar has
press fitted a 1/4" steel rod inside the 1/2" piece. FYI the
current No-Mar demount tips have been through 7 generations of
design changes. For the mount end I use UHMW which as you know by now
is self
lubricating. The L shaped piece
of UHMW is
held in place by two flat
head machine screws that are counter sunk. Having two screws
prevents
the UHMW from rotating when pressure is
applied during the mounting process.
The tire tool comes unpainted. If I
painted them it would add ~$10 to $15 to the cost of the bar. Some
people just coat it with a light film of oil to prevent any rust from
forming. I painted mine with a can of Rust-oleum Hammered rattle can
paint that I picked up at Lowes. Note that this stuff can be applied
over rust. I'm considering starting to paint my bars with some black
POR-15 epoxy paint.
Availability
and ordering information
I
will only be building around 7 to 14 of these tools a month because
they
take SO much time to build and this is only a hobby for me, and a way
to
help cover some of my motorcycle expenses. It also enables me to
provide
a quality tire tool to other DIY motorcycle riders that like doing
things for them selves. I'd like to think that I've combined the best
attributes of the available bars on the market into one bar. However,
this is something each person will have to decide on their own.
The price for the tool is $87 shipped
to
anywhere in the USA and I
ship priority mail with confirmation delivery. For shipping outside the
USA email me for pricing. For questions or purchase information
please contact me at noscufftiretool@yahoo.com.
For existing customers with delrin tips, nothing will change. If you break your demount tip I'll still replace your tip but you'll have the option to use my legacy delrin tip or you can change over to the No-Mar tip. The ONLY difference will be that I can no longer grind the two flat spots on my delrin tips because it is patented by No-Mar, so you'll have to do the grinding yourself.
Prefab bar mount end upgrade
I had a request from a member on the KLR world forum to just sell him the mount end from my bar. It was something at the time I hadn't even considered but realized there are a few people that aren't particularly happy with the mount end on their prefab bar, but also don't want to drop another $87~$115 for another tool to replace it with. Now you have another option. To replace the prefab mount end you simply cut the old one off and weld my new one on. You'll want to square the end of the tubing up before you weld the new mount end on and make sure you remove the UHMW because it will melt when welding. The standard thick wall 1" tubing I use has the same inner diameter ".840" as one of the other prefab bars. Note that .840 ID for this type of pipe is pretty much industry standard. I'd do the upgrade for you for free, but by the time you pay shipping costs both ways you could have gotten a local welder to do the work for you. Remember cheap is good. Just find someone you know with a welder and get them to help you. Maybe a 6 pack would help seal the deal! Anyway the cost of the upgrade mount end is $35 shipped to anywhere in the USA. For questions or purchase information please contact me at noscufftiretool@yahoo.com.
Prefab upgrade mount ends are available by request.
Warranty & repair information
Under normal use the demount tips will last a lifetime. If you happen to break the demount tip I will only charge you for shipping and the raw material cost ~$10. The No-Mar demount tips will cost $11. Please check out the No-Mar demount tip conversion document for instructions on how to upgrade to the new tips. It's really very simple and I would recommend doing it. The UHMW on the mount end is 1/4" thick so it will never wear out under normal use, but if you do break it I can send a replacement for just the shipping cost. If you bend or break the bar then your on your own and you probably don't need to be changing your own tires. Please read the Tiretool instructions document and be sure to watch the instructional videos. Both will save you a lot of frustration and keep you from breaking the Tiretool and possibly the bead on your tire. Anything can be broken if used improperly! Remember the bar is over 36" long and you can put quite a bit of leverage on the bead of a tire with this tool. Removing a motorcycle tire SHOULD be relatively easy with this tool and if it isn't you need to stop and think about it before you break something.
About the Videos on youtube!
On the original No-scufftiretool video we didn't use any lubricant when demounting the tire which I don't recommend BTW! The owners tire that we changed didn't have any lubricate available and had not been using it for demounting after his rims got all scratched up. The other videos I just finished shooting this weekend 8/9/09 with the help of my wife. I needed a rear tire changed and figured it would be a good time to make the videos. Don't expect perfection because I said a couple of things that even left me scratching my head. My wife was shooting the videos and did a great job but I think her good looks must have gotten me distracted, or maybe I'm just camera shy? Anyway I fixed most of the mistakes by inserting text into the videos.
Rims the tool will NOT work on
So far the only rims I know of that the tool will not work on are Excel, and that was on one of the taller then stock front rims mounted on a KLR. I have successfully changed a tire on a rear Excel rim and it worked just fine. The problem we had with the front rim was the lack of an adequate center relief area (non-existent), which caused the demount tip to BIND up. The mount end worked just fine, even with almost ZERO center relief. The customer that had the problem owns multiple bikes and is still VERY happy with his purchase.
Helpful Links
IMO One of the best DIY motorcycle tire changing websites. http://www.clarity.net/~adam/tire-changing-doc.html
A couple of links where my tiretool is discussed. There are "other" forums as well but you have to join them to view the threads.
http://www.apriliaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117988&page=7
http://yamahafz1oa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80845
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