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 and 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 minutes 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 degrees it's either going to damage or weaken the demount tip.
Fabrication of the No-scufftiretool
Here's a link to a nice write up on the fabrication process that a local customer did.
No-scuff tire tool fabrication write up
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 other 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. The legacy
delrin tips that I
made were initially reinforced with a 1/4" case hardened
bolt which 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 both to purchase and to
ship. My bar weighs under 5lbs and the 1" solid stock ones
are around 15lbs. I ended up using one of the most common
pipes available which has an ID of .840 and is readily
available at most places that carry cold rolled steel.
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. The new patented No-Mar demount ends
are made from UHMW, which is a self lubricating plastic. The
No-Mar demount tips have 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 which is the contact area of the bar and
the demount tip. 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
Lowe's. Note that this stuff can be applied over rust.
Availability
and
ordering information
I will only be building around 6 to 12 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
hobby expenses. It also enables me to provide a quality tire
tool to other YID 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 $88
shipped to anywhere in the USA and I ship
priority mail with confirmation delivery. For questions or
purchase information please contact me at noscufftiretool@yahoo.com.
Sorry guys the USPS raised their prices this year so I'm
being forced to raise mine $1 to make up the difference.
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.
For international shipments the cheapest shipping I can find is with the USPS and it's still $40 for a total cost of $115. I also will sell my tire tool in kit form (no bar just both ends) for $78 including shipping to NON metric countries i.e. UK, Ireland etc... Please note that the customer can also be hit with a customs fee of $25 which I personally think is outrageous for a $65 dollar item but that's life. It is the customers responsibility to cover the customs fees.
In metric countries there will be a problem finding a .840" ID pipe to mount the demount and mounting ends to. I have the capability to make an adapter kit for metric countries but haven't had any takers yet. Note that I will NOT sell my tire tool in kit form in the US.
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 replacement 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. 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. 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 with shipping. 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. I will only sell the demount tips as warranty items to existing customers. Notice I said sell, I'm not going to just give you a new tip because you break it. The No-Mar tips are designed to give when the force applied exceeds the design specification.
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 my videos. Both will save you a lot of frustration and keep you from breaking the Tiretool. 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 and on the demount tip. For most tires using the proper technique mounting 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 or start throwing stuff.
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! It was a new tire though. The owner whose tire 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 shot 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 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 this has been the case on a few of the Excel rims front and rear. I would not use my tool on Excel rims. The problem with Excel rims is the lack of an adequate center relief area (non-existent), which causes the demount tip to BIND up or break. If you try to demount the tire with the tip BOUND up then the tip is going to do what it's designed to do i.e. BREAK. The No-Mar tips are designed to give when the force applied to the tip exceeds the design specification. A tip that won't give will either bend your rim or damage the bead on the tire. The mount end still works OK on the Excel rims but it is real tight. If you having a difficult time changing a tire using tire irons because of the lack of center relief area inside the rim then more then likely you'll have trouble using a manual tire mount demount tool like mine or for that matter. It's all about the relief area!
Helpful Link
IMO One of the best DIY motorcycle tire changing websites with lots of good information. http://www.clarity.net/~adam/tire-changing-doc.html
If you do a search for no-scufftiretool you'll find a lot of threads where DIY guys & gals are using my tire tool.
No-Mar
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