This purchase was a bit of stretch for me, I didn't grow up working around cars or trucks. Its quite intimidating. The TM's are a great help, but just understanding and figuring out how to use the TM's takes some learning. Some of you experts will laugh at this thread, and rightly so. But for those of you new to this like me, if I can figure this out, you can too. And maybe learn from my mistakes.
I'm taking this project slow, as in glacier slow. I purchased some tools along the way. It's been said before, but having the “right” tool makes a world of difference. Next order of business is swapping the old tires out for some new rubber.
Was able to get the lock nuts off the spare tire with no issues.
Got the first half of the rim off.
Then got the second half out.
Then got the bead lock out of the old tire. Mistake #1... in my excitement of making progress I put the first rim half back in the new tire. Wait did I skip a step... yes... put the bead lock back into the new tire. So, out comes the rim. Put in the bead-lock, then put in the rim half. I purchased some new o-rings. (again, the 5-ton part spreadsheet here on SS was a life-saver). The ones that came out looked pretty good, but why take the chance. I don't want to do this again.
Mistake #2... forgot to put the o-ring on first. After some attempts at trying to get the o-ring on with the rim in the tire, I removed the rim from the new tire again. Much easier getting the new o-ring on out of the tire.
Rim back in the tire, flip it over, put the second half of the rim clamp on. Tighten down new locking nuts.
Everything should be good, put the valve core back in the step and add just a little bit of air.
Hmm.... whats that sound? Air entering the tire. No, that other sound. Ahh... that hiss, that would be air leaving the tire. Take the clamping rim off and check. Mistake #3... the o-ring got pushed down between the rim and bead lock when I put the rim in for what felt like the 100th time. Who would have thought... the o-ring was put in there for a reason. So, fix the o-ring, 2nd half of the rim back on and tighten the locking nuts again.
Add air, no leaking this time. I stopped at about 15 pounds. Waited a few hours, mostly because I was just tired. The tire still had 15 pounds of air. Slowly add more air up to 60 pounds, and the next morning, it's still holding 60 PSI.
Success! I don't really want to admit how my hours I have into this little tire-swap project at this point. And I still have 6 more to go.