I put the new bearings and seal in the rear wheel and sprocket carrier yesterday morning, and installed the rear tire last night. I tried this trash-bag method, but couldn’t even get one side on the rim.
That IRC tire was about the stiffest casing I’ve ever worked with. Even with tire irons, it took me an hour to get it on the rim. Part of the problem was that once I got one side on, the part of the other side that I’d gotten over the rim didn’t want to stay in the center channel, and kept popping up onto the bead, making further progress impossible. Once I got it on, it took about 30 minutes and eventually in excess of 100 PSI and lots of soapy water to get both beads to seat properly.
The whole time I kept thinking how much easier it would be to take it to a dealership and let someone with a changing machine do it. But the whole point of this project is to try to do stuff myself, and determine exactly what can be done economically in my garage. In the end, I did manage to get done, got it properly installed, and didn’t pay for it.
