cutting off foam filled tires

have a fork lift with foam filled tires, one tire is cut real bad and i want to replace it. How do you cut it off? one neighbor says to throw it in a fire and burn it off the rim!!

A sawzall with a longer blade and cut across the tire. Then pry off the rest. Might have to scrape the rim to clean it up. I have seen in tire shops where they had to cut it to pieces to remove it.

Throwing stuff in the fire may have worked in the dark ages before we had newer alloys. I would be very concerned about making the rim weaker from the "fire" treatment. I'd go the saws-all or something similar route myself.

Do you have a large salvage yard close by? Many have a machine that they put the tire and rim in and it pushes the tire right off the rim.

Gene

Don't a lot of forklifts have bolt together rims ?
The tires are so stiff normally they make the rims to come apart in 2 parts.

don't burn it, take sawzall and cut a V out of the tire and foam. take a cold or air chisel and cut the bead wires. pull it apart. If you are going to have the new tire foam filled, save the old foam. The place that foam fills will probably want it back, they can reuse it. We ALWAYS put a tube in the new tires and had them fill the tube with foam, then there was no problem with the foam sticking to the rim.

I did only one, Took me 3 or 4 days. It was a front tire from a mower tractor. I feel that with the time and energy used you will be far better off getting another rim to start over again.

I never have done it with forklift tires, but had to remove the foam from a couple of front tractor tires. What worked for me was cutting the tire itself with a Sawzall, all around the circumference and then across the tread, so I could get most of the tire off, leaving the beads. Then I attacked the foam donut with the sawzall and some pry bars, until the foam came loose in several large pieces. The beads are still fairly hard to remove from the rims, but eventually I was able to pry them off.

Like the other posters, I would worry about ruining the strength of the rim if I burned the tire/foam off. Also, in my area burning ANY tire would probably get me in trouble with the air pollution control folks. I just would not even consider burning it off.

You wrote that the tire is cut real bad. Depending on where the cut is, the foamed tire might work just fine like it is for years, unless the cut is spreading or if the tire is flapping and rubbing on the machine. The solid foam should hold just about anything up, but if the tread is not there, the smooth foam will have poor traction on anything very slick.

Removing the old tire and foam is not an easy job, but it is probably one most people could accomplish. The second one I did was WAY easier than the first one, because I had some idea of how to do it. Good luck!

I cut 4 off my Bobcat with a razor knife. Took about 30 min each.