I bought a bead breaker and tire irons from J C Whitney and have changed every tire since.

I made a balancing stand out of a few pieces of wood and 4 very low friction bearings.

Works perfectly.

As far as how important balancing is - I've lost the weights on my Duece rear wheel several times on long high speed trips and I'd have never known it by the way the bike rode. The only reason I knew they were gone is because I could see them missing at a stop. You would think that I would have felt something different whenever they came off but I never had a clue. Even though - I still balance them. And on the Duece rear wheel I glue the weights on with silicone adhesive. It's the only way I've found to keep them on at high speed.

 

I used to change my tires until a few years ago. I've decided to start doing it myself again and avoid the down time of dropping the wheel off at an indy and waiting a day or so to get it done. Picking up my new E3s and Cycle Hill tire changer on Friday. Good times ahead. As far as balancing goes, I've had so many weights come off while riding and never noticed any difference that I won't bother anymore.

 

As we live in the sticks took the new tire and my rim with tire to the local tire store $10.00 to change it out..

 

I'll usually buy a new tire right before I actually need one. I'll take it to the shop to have it done. Then I sell my, still decent, old tire on ebay & that more than covers my cost of having a shop do it.

 

I've got a cycle hill tire changer. I would balance with Dyna beads. They're pretty cheap.

 

Actually, it's kind of the opposite. I'm looking to get stuff to do my bike, but also aondering if I can use the same stuff to do my gf's car since it has such small tires, they are practically like a motorcycle tire.

Thanks for all the tips, I'll probably give it a shot. My local dealer wants almost $300 to do it, and if it were only the money, I might just do it and be done, but every time I hire someone to do something I think I might be able to do, when it is all done, I find I'd have done a better job and saved money. I guess to sum it up, as far as I'm concerned, the more things I can do myself, the better.

And my rear tire is pretty much gone, almost 15K on the stock D402, so selling it on ebay isn't going to do me much good

 

Harbor Freight motocycle changer and tire changer are a two part set up. Can do car tires. Put the motocycle adapter on and do bike tires. Do mine but sometimes these new Dunlap Amer Elite can be tuff.

 

I pull my wheels/tires off the bike and buy the tire from the local dealer. I have a buddy at a tire shop that mounts them for free and the dealer balances them for free because I buy the tires there. Works out well.

 

To make a nifty tire changing stand get an old steel car rim and cover the edge with a piece of hose slit lengthwise.
MC tire are usually easy to seat the bead if you remove the core from the valve stem, and modify the air chuck to be free flowing.
If you have trouble seating the bead, check you tube for the starting fluid method, I've never needed it for a MC tire.

 

Well, I appreciate all the help, however, I have found a local indy that I've heard good things about that will mount and balance for $35 if I bring the wheel in. I'm probably just going to go that route and be done with it, for now anyway. Still waiting though to hear how much they want for the tire itself, though