Home-Built Tractor Tire Turn

Home-Built Tractor Tire Turn MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 17-2-9 "My son and I built a tire turner several years ago using the frame of an old truck which we cut off behind the cab," says Fred Maasdam, Sully, Iowa. "People come from 30 miles away or more to have tires turned. The first year we turned over 250 tires without any trouble at all and we've been using it ever since," says Maasdam. A tripod made out of heavy channel iron supports a reinforced lifting boom that's raised and lowered by a pair of front-end loader cylinders mounted side by side. The boom pulls upon cut-in-half tractor rims which pull the lower tire bead up through the tire to flip it. The size of the rim used to flip the tire varies depending on the size of the tire. The tire is first set on top of the rim and the top bead is cut off. Then hooks on the end of short pieces of chain are hooked onto the cut-off edge of the tire and a chain from the boom is hooked to the wheel rim. When the boom is raised, it pulls the bottom bead up through the tire, flipping it. Maasdam says the biggest problem is that after the tire is flipped, there are buckles in the tire because some of the lugs are bowed inward and some bow outwards. At rust he says they punched them out with their feet but that was hard on their backs. So they came up with a hydraulic "puncher" that uses an 8-in. cylinder to round out the flipped tires. That device works great, he says, and makes the entire job "fun to do". Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, FredMaasdam, 8018th Ave., Sully, Iowa 50251 (ph 515 594-3451).

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