Mounting tires and tubes

J

JayJay

Well-known member
So I'm mounting a new set of tires and tubes. Can't get good old fashioned talc baby powder any more. Does corn starch baby powder work as well (for tubes and tires, not babies' butts - I'm waay past that part of my life)?
 
The smell of baby powder reminds me of dirty diapers. I put my tubes in a big garbage bag, add corn starch and shake. It makes the tubes slide around easily in the tire. When I took some tubes like this into a tire store to get some modern radials mounted on 16" wire rims they thought I was nuts, but later agreed that it helped.
 
I went down to Walgreens and picked up a bottle of their generic baby powder. Seems to be corn starch, an anti- lumping agent and fragrance. So far it seems to be working well. I’m used to coating tubes and tires with talc from my bicycle and motorcycle days but apparently lost my bottles of talc in a home move 10+ years ago.

Tom, that’s a sweet setup you made for tire install. I’m using a couple of lengths of 4x4 I had lying around for the same thing.
 
I use the corn starch product, but can't honestly say myself if it does any good. To lube the bead, I got this: https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/BK_7651338 It was a few years ago, so I don't remember if the swab I have came with it or not. To break the bead, I made a bead breaker that I copied from Harbor Fright (ignore the spare tire cover!):

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