Recommendations for tire irons or levers?

I've decided to start trying to change tires myself. First, I want some tire levers. Strangely, they seem to come in singly or in pairs, where I'm thinking that 3 would be the optimal number in a kit.

I would like to hear recommendations for reasonably priced ones. Right now, my preferences fall to these two:

Out of stock ones: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004NV6FE2/ref ... XY0MA3HQG3

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QFVJ5O/ref ... 4B4UTWAVLL

 

hope you're young/fit, cos you're going to loose some sweat doing it yourself.
I have the motion pro ones, in the second link, and struggled to get them to enter into the rim, let alone get the tire off, then risk buggering up the rim.
better to take them to a fitter ,imho,
you also need rim protectors and a good vice, for breaking the bead away from the rim.
stu

 

Hope you like arm day.

I picked up a couple from my local auto shop, went back for a third after it took me most of a morning to get the old front tire off.

Rim protectors for sure. I just use old scraps of leather. Seems to work well.

I also use rim soap, makes getting the new tire on sooooooo easy. My rear only took 20 mins to get the old Dunlop off and the new BT45 on. And 15 mins of that was me using a vice to break the bead on the old one.

 

second ones, but you do need three. i picked one up locally so long ago i don't even remember where.
the lube is lemon pledge, applied with your fingers.
rim protectors are 2X4 inch strips of 2 liter pop bottles, you can't break through that stuff.
bead breaker picture i stole from customfighters.com
a car bumper works too, one of those old bumper jacks would be the beans.
a set of saw horses makes the perfect work platform.
you need one of those things to take the valve core out with.
a big wire tie comes in real handy.
i've pushed maxim tires on without using irons
balance the rim without the tire to use the minimum amount of weight with the tire on.
i just changed a 180-55 -R17 on my suzuki, should have made a video

 

I used the zip tie method for installing the rear tire and it was a piece of cake.
First time I ever tried it and it went a lot easier than the youtube vid I watched. I'm going to do the same thing with the front but I need to come up with a better removal method than a wood saw, dykes, and huge vocabulary of swear words.

 

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I used the zip tie method for installing the rear tire and it was a piece of cake
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er, zip tie,? "pray tell"
stu

 

i think changing tires is easy but this guy takes it to a new level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI01yB8clSM

 

OK... well I only used the zip ties for the installation but I believe they can also assist with removal. I won't go into my removal procedure for fear I might get 5150'd(sectioned for the Limeys)
You need a bottle of windex, 8 heavy duty tie wraps, and a wheel polished and finished to your own standard.
You place the tie wraps with the connector outside/away from the bead equally spaced around the tire. As you add the tie wraps you will be able to cinch them tighter until you can't tighten them anymore(that's obviously subjective)
Now you begin to install the tire like you would if you were going one bead at a time. I found that I had the tire on almost half way round the wheel right from the start then with a little effort using just my bare hands I got it about 80%. I used one tire lever and an 18mm combination wrench and to my delight it popped on.
Now with the tire on you can polish or blend any damage, nicks, dings, etc out of the wheel(I had none...just some cosmetic compression type markings that polished out with McGuires..YMMD)
Then the fun part, you get to balance the wheel without any weights, just light spot on the tire to valve on the wheel but don't spend too much time because the balance will, for some reason, change after inflation??? Then you do your final balance and your good to go.
Now getting the thing off is another issue, especially when you have a 30 year old tire that has the feel and texture of a 30 year old piece of wood(Hmmm now I remember where I got the inspiration to use the wood saw ...hahahaha)
Oh yeah the windex is used for lubrication and use plenty!! and you can watch some pretty interesting individuals on youtube who decided to video their performance while executing the same procedure. That can be a good source of how to (and sometimes how not to) approach the task.
Hope it works out for ya.

 

I have two small Model T spring leafs. Works fine for me. What helps the most is hot tires (sunlight easiest).