Was reading some of the threads on here about mounting wheels. I noticed that someone mentioned a cheetah? I'm not exactly sure what it is but by googling it looks like some an air tank that will fill the tire rapidly with air as it mounts the wheel on?

Will i need this to mount my wheels since I'm doing a stretched tire setup?

225/35/20 on a 20x9.5 and 245/35/20 on a 20x10.5?

I'm worried about where to take my tires to get mounted and balance since I don't think most tire shops know about this "stretched" setup. I just want to be careful on who does the mount and balancing when I get my wheels in.

 

the cheetah is only to inflate stretched setups since a regular air pump doesn't have that burst of air to get the tires to sit on the bead. With the narrow tires and wide rims, there's a huge gap where it can not make any contact to the bead to seal and inflate. If you try to sit one side of the tire on to the rim, the other side just expose a even bigger gap, vice-versa. I dunno, it's hard to explain in words

Regardless, you'll still need to get the tires mounted onto the rim and balanced, not unless you have the equipment and tools to do that part as well. The only way is to get them to mount the tires(that's if you can convince them in mounting a narrow tire after looking at you like you're insane), go home and use your cheetah(or if you can find an outdoor outlet somewhere near by where you can plug the cheetah and steal some electricity, I know I know, that's cheeting, no pun intended), then finally bring it back to the shop to get it balanced. Either way, you're intrusting your wheels to a shop and hope it doesn't get damaged by a simple job of mounting and balancing.

 

 

so do you think i need one? i don't have access to a cheetah or anything, sigh. didn't know it would be this difficult to get a stretched tire setup to work.

 

if you can deal with someone doing the mounting and balancing part, and if you feel comfortable using a cheetah yourself, then get one.

Otherwise, if the shop is not familiar with stretch mounting in the first place, then they wouldn't know how to use the cheetah either. You best bet is the three step process, 1)get them to mount the tire onto the rim, 2)bring back to wherever you can use the cheetah, 3)bring it back to the shop to get it balanced.

Or...look for a shop that does stretch mounting, or if you happen to see any cars rolling around your area with wheels poking out, stop them by any means and ask them where they got their tires mounted.

 

i never even heard of that before. i got my tires stretched by a local shop. it was a pita but they did it.

 

ending tune might be NSFW...b!tch haha, oh and the dead rat for the animal activists

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you're in texas, hit up royal or any of the swang n bang guys... somehow THEY got their tires stretched

 

I got my tires mounted and balanced at a shop and they didn't use that to set the bead. Fit fine and holds air fine too.
I don't think it's needed for light stretches.
I've got 255/30/20 on 10.5" rears.

 

 

well you know, there's other methods...carb cleaner fluid, lighter fluid, a match or a lighter, or the good ol' bicycle tube, etc. Did they use a normal air pump with yours?

 

Yeah they just put the tire on with the mounting machine and filled it with nitrogen.

Should I use the lighter fluid method next time just to be sure it's seated properly?
I ordered 235/35/20 & 255/35/20 tires from tirerack. My current 255/30/20 is too small in diameter and my front 245/35/20 don't stretch like the rears.