Does anyone know about vintage coats tireman?

When I got my tire machine, I thought I was in tall cotton! For years, on the ranch, instead of taking tires to town, we would drive our 1959 Ford pickup up onto the tire breaking it down, back off , flip over, do it again. Take to the shop, pry the tire off with big screw drivers, patch the tube with hot patches, let them cool, beat the tire back on with hammers. Did this for twenty years......any tire machine is better than that! And we did some tires too! My dad had one inner tube that had over ninety patches on it! He had a friend that worked at “ Camel” patch company, located here in Muskogee, that gave him patches that were a little off, for free. One day my Dads friend was in the shop when my Dad pulled that tube out. He asked my Dad for it and he took it to work and his company, Camel, displayed in their show room for years, until they closed.


You can kinda see it behind my lathe.




Bones

 

Service station I worked at back in the 70's had one of those ... fixing flats was a workout for sure ...

 

When I was 16, I worked at a local gas station/repair shop. In addition to pumping gas, changing and repairing tires was my job. He had a "new" Coats 20/10 at the time, but he had one of those old manual changers also. I got pretty good at using that old manual changer! When the guys at our local dirt track started running the wide tires, that old manual changer was about the only thing that could handle a 12" wide wheel. I mounted a lot of those dirt track tires.

Flash forward 30 years, I went to an auction where they had an old beat up Coats 10/10. They didn't put it up for bid until late in the day, and I bought it for my opening bid of $25. It was bolted to a 4' x 8' piece of 3/4" plywood that came with it. I have hanged lot of tires on that old machine. Even though the hoses are old and leak some air, it still gets the job done.

I haven't done much tire changing lately, the 10/10 is in my bottom garage and its kind of a pain to get the air line back there. I showed my grandson how to use it a couple months ago, so I suspect it may see some usage again. If not, it really needs to go away.

For the guy wondering about using the old manual changer on modern large diameter wheels, I wouldn't want to. The old changers secured the wheels to the changer through the wheel's center hole with a clamping device (or the slightly newer machines grabbed the back of the wheel with jaws), the bead breaker hooks onto the rim lip and uses it as a lever point to push the tire bead off the wheel. Once the bead is broken, the bar that pulls the tire off and back on the wheel hooks onto the wheel lip and slides around the top of it. They use the wheel as a leverage point and can easily scratch up the lip surface. On the large diameter wheels, the arm that breaks the bead may not be able to reach out far enough on the 17" and larger diameter to clear the wheel lip and may break the wheel lip.
Gene

 

Going to go look at an old Coats manual machine tomorrow. Guy has a couple of them, one together, the other he took apart to clean and paint. Pic he sent me it has the air powered bead breaker, he said on both the cylinders were froze up. Only thing is he doesn't have the dismount / mount bar. I looked on eBay, but didn't find much. Everything looked to be for the newer machines.

 

That's the first tire machine I ever used. I have a bit newer model that has an air operated bead breaker for the bottom bead. You are missing the cone to hold the tire on the machine and a short bar that connects to the tab on the bead roller. Get those two things and you are in business.

 

i bought a horrible freight one and worked my butt off trying to use it. i finnaly figured i worked hard enough building cars to put out that much energy so looked on line and found a 10-10 coats. i re drilled the bar that pulls the arm down to break the bead so it will do 10 inch rims now.

 

This was the only tire machine at the dealership I worked in servicing about 10 mechanics. Sometimes you had to wait in line for the guy that got to the machine first to get finished LOL.

 

The Coats 1010 and 2020 were both good machines for steel wheels, but you had to be very careful if doing alloys. One issue not mentioned is the 'back' bead breaker operates every time you step on the pedal, and some alloy wheels don't 'settle' as far onto the machine, allowing the bead breaker to catch on the rim lip. I've seen chunks broke out the back bead lip. I never had any problems with alloy wheels, and I did most of 'em because the other guys were afraid to. The one wheel I wouldn't touch was Cragar SS; those centers were just too fragile.

 

Went and looked at it this morning, after the exchange of some George Washington's, it rode home with me. Can't find a model number plate on it anywhere, just assuming it's a Coats. I have to rebuild the cylinder and put it all back together after I sand and paint it.

Pics on his truck and in his shop.

 

Anyone see my post i need the mesurments for the top bead breaker like franco has.i know t6his is old post but i need one.going to make one.

 

I’ll take a pic of mine tomorrow, seems similar, but not exactly as shown. One air ram, break the bottom bead first, the the top on the way down. Use the bar to get the tire off the rim (manually).

doesn’t like wide tires/ wheels in one operation. Can sometimes get by with flipping the tire/wheel over and breaking the top bead from the bottom.

 

I missed this thread when it got started but I first used one of those machines as a high school sophomore in 1962, used used one in the Pontiac dealership I worked in for 3 years in the 70's. Dismounting 4 Vogue bias tires that were like 6 ply and mounting 4 new ones kept you out of the gym that day. Then when I started teaching auto shop in 1977 the same tire changer I had used in the 60's was in the shop in the new shop building.
A couple of shots off the net:

First shows the tool that is used with the slot and is the bead breaker if you don't have the other style.

Second shot shows one with the threaded cone that screws on to hold the wheel down that most of us are used to using. Those can be had on Ebay. Now that I look the cone is upside down on the blue one. I have never seen one of those bead breaker rollers like you see on the blue one in any shop I worked in that had one of those tire changers. I piddle potted around and didn't go buy one that was sale about 50 miles from me a couple of years ago.

 

Franco: In 1958-59 one of those tire machines built some muscle on my 12-13 year old body. They got me some pipe extensions so my boney butt could get a little leverage. Saturdays were a big tire day, sold a lot of recaps in those times. If I got behind one of the other guys would mount and I would balance and clean everything. White walls had to gleam! If there was anything left of me I washed cars.

 

Mr48, that is the one I have and use regularly.

 

On those manual tire machines they need to be bolted down real firm. What the previous owner of mine did was to build a frame work out of 1 inch square tubing under mine about five ft by five ft and was covered with ply wood. Then bolt the tire changer to it. The plywood is now gone on mine, but I like it better as I can lock my boots on the square bars and get my leverage. And it’s portable! Or at least you can move it around! Lol








Bones

 

Here’s mine, also says Coats Tireman on a sticker. Been bolted in that same spot for a good 45 years.

 

I still haven’t figured out what brand mine is, but pretty sure it’s not a Coats like I first thought it was. I rebuilt the cylinder and valve and put new lines on it, it does pretty good on 15” steel wheels. Tried it on a 15” aluminum, it worked, but chipped the rear rim in a couple of spots, looked like the aluminum was soft anyway may have been the reason. Tried it on one of the 17” wheels off the wife’s Expy, I couldn’t get the top breaker shoe high enough to go over the tire. Even tried turning it upside down, still no go. Thought about getting a piece of pipe the same ID as the OD of the bead breaker and cutting it and making the height of the top shoe adjustable for wider tires, but haven’t tried it.

I still need to find a duck head bar to mount and dismount with. Still using a couple of flat bars, they work ok on the top, but a pia on the bottom. Oh, I bolted mine down to a piece of 3/4” plywood that is bolted to a wooden pallet. Holds it great, and I can easily move it if need be.

 

Here is my tire machine. I pulled it out of a dumpster

Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I did a little searching on mr google last night to see if I could find any pics of one like mine. I did, turns out mine was made by a Studebaker company, Big 4 Industries. Time frame seems to be 1950’s to 1960’s. Couldn’t find much info about mine, although did see a manual on eBay for a later powered model made like a coats 20/20.

 

My Dad had a Coats Iron Tireman manual changer in his garage when I was a kid. It was missing the top bead breaker, so he had taken the rear breaker off the machine and made it into the bead breaker. The downside was that you had to flip the tire to break both sides. I became very fluent with this machine in my high school years!
About 30 years ago I found one at a yard sale that had all of the parts and was paired with a Bear bubble balancer. I didn't hesitate to buy it and still use it often today. My garage unfortunately isn't big enough to leave it bolted in place, so I set 3/8" anchors in the floor and bolt it down when I need it.
To Bobby J, I posted a pic of my top bead breaker for measurements.

 

In 1957 I mounted those in gas stations being built. If you want them to stay & not break out of the concrete buy some sulphur from the drug store, if you can get it anymore, & melt it with a torch . It doesn't take much. Mount the bolt with head in the floor ,then fill the hole with melted sulphur. That will stay in place. Use the bolts as studs. Be careful not to breath the fumes.

 

I started using the manual tire changer when I was 10 years old in 1975 at my dad's gas station. I can remember a couple of the accessories that have been long gone for 40 years but some of the others in pictures I have never seen. My dad built a garage at his house in 1983 and the tire changer was bolted to the floor. About 15 years ago, I had to rebolt it as it had come loose.
As long as I have used it, there was never a bottom bead breaker. We used a top breaker and flipped the tire over. The center piece that you screw on is long gone. There is a hole drilled in the deck and a long bolt is put through a lug hole and through the deck and secured with a nut and washer so the tire stays down and doesn't rotate. The bead breaker is worn and slips so there is a whole drilled through the post and a screw driver inserted to keep the bead breaker in place. If the tire won't break down, wood is placed underneath to raise the tire and make it easier. A pry bar with a "ball" tip is used to remove the tire after it is lubed with power steering fluid. The mounting bar is the same one my dad has had for 60 years. It may or may not have been hand made. Power steering fluid applied to both beads. To air up the tire, there was a band and rubber doughnut but haven't seen them in years. Two of us can usually pull and push the tire in the right way to get the air started. If a tire looks especially hard, place cans between the beads and warm the tire up overnight. After getting the beads sealed, you have to loosen the nut and remove the bolt holding the tire down before completely airing up the tire. With a little ingenuity you can make anything work!!

 

Old post......but I want to hear more stories. I was waiting to get a 20-20 or something like it in the future but I don't want to wait anymore. I'm now on the hunt for a Tireman and a M-60 bubble Balancer......sadly I've seen them both at swap meets years ago but past on them.

 

You could always go ultra-trad, and get one of these.

 

Yep me too. Started playing tireman when I was 12

 

Ok, I like to see that one in action.....


So after I bumped this thread back up I found one for sale at a good price . I went to look at it tonight and bought it. It's missing some original parts BUT, it has some mods close to what I was going to do (and they look pretty solid). I give you the Coats Tireman 3 Star 2.0............in an odd color


I can feel comfortable doing newer aluminum wheels.