Last year after I lifted and spaced out the wheels on the Honda I decided I was going to need some new rubber for the quad in the near future.. I had some spied out but decided to give the tires another year. I settled on Intercos Swamp Lites, they have gotten really good reviews for an general all purpose tire and have been around for years. I got the itch last week so I pulled the trigger and ordered from Motosports.com. I went with the stock size 22x7-11 for the fronts and 22x11-9 for the rear. The tires on the Honda were the original ones that came with the 4 wheeler 10 years ago and were getting pretty worn down. The tires arrived in just under a week and came in 2 large boxes. I decided to put my new manual tire changer to work and after watching several YouTube videos felt like I had a grasp of how this was going to go.
The front tires were a little compressed in shipping so I had to use a ratchet strap around the circumference of the tire to get the bead to seat. I thought I would start with the fronts because they would be the hardest to mount by the look of them....WRONG! The back tires were very hard to get the outside lip of the tire over the rim. The tool that came with the tire changer was too thick and there wasn't enough room to slip it between the tire and the rim. I ended up shoving one edge of the tire under the lip of the rim and using a ratchet strap to keep it there while using 2X4 wood pieces to compress the lip down into the rim to allow enough room to work the lip around the rim inch by inch with a couple of screw drivers. I again had to use a ratchet strap to get the bead to seat.
Front before
Side before
Frontish after
Side after
Lugs on the swamp lites.
I haven't had a chance to ride it much yet but hope to be able to remedy that this weekend down at the farm. I think they should do a lot better than the stock tires. I will report back on how they do.
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