Hey guys ChrisFix here today
I'm going to show you how to remove a tire and put a tire back on your car although this seems very
Simple this is a fundamental piece of how to fix your car most of the time
We're gonna be taking the tire off to get to the suspension pieces to get to the brakes
Whatever the case may be and if you need to take the tire off to fix it
It's important to know how to do it properly so you don't get hurt and so that you secure the vehicle safely
I'll be giving you some tips and tricks to make the job easier
And I'll show you all the tools that I use to make my life easier
Lifting [your] car should be something easy to do if you dread lifting your car
You're going to hate working on your car for [me]. It takes a couple of seconds
it's really easy to do so [I] don't mind getting under my car and lifting it up every once in a while today going to
Show you how to take the tire off a van, but it doesn't matter van car truck
they're pretty much all the same the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to go to the back tire because we're
Lifting up the front you want to make sure your vehicle doesn't roll anywhere when you lift the [front] tires up
So make sure you secure the emergency brake you have it in Park
or you have it in first if you have a stick and then get your two blocks of wood one in the front and
one in the rear
This will make [sure] that the vehicle doesn't go anywhere when you lift the [front] up
So after you do that in your [vehicle's] secured we have to loosen the lug nuts
With the tire on the ground you can see on this rim the lug nuts are actually covered by this plate
But that's not the case on all rims with the rim on my truck
You could see the lug nuts are actually exposed so you could get right in there
But that doesn't really matter [because] all you do is you get your flat-head screwdriver in here?
And you just pry it up a little bit in [that] little slot that they provide you
And you have access to your lug nuts some vehicles only have four lug nuts
I'd say five is the most common and some have six
To get these lug nuts off you use a couple different tools one of them is a tire iron
This is the classic tire iron
you can see this one is [three] sixteenths or three quarters the [lug] nuts that come on this vehicle are 3/4 and
Most of the American vehicles that are working on even the foreign vehicles. They're usually 3/4 as well so with the tire iron
All you do is find the 3/4 and you put it on now, you grab one hand here one hand down here
And you turn?
just like that and the good thing about this is it comes off really easy because you could just spin it like that and
pull the lug nut right off
sometimes these lug nuts are on pretty tight on your vehicle it might be on really tight because you went to a mechanic and they
Use the impact gun they didn't torque it properly
[I] see that all the time and then it becomes really difficult to get these off the tire
Iron is definitely a good tool
[if] you torque them correctly
But if they're too tight, you don't have a long enough bar here to get good torque to break them loose
So instead what I use. I use an actual breaker bar
This is way longer then this tire iron gives you an extra almost foot length
Which gives you a lot [more] torque? All you do is get an extension get your 3/4 socket
You slide the breaker bar and sock it over one the lug nuts, and it comes off easy
Otherwise those would be a pain to get off you could hear some of them made a noise
I was turning it those were torqued on pretty tight
And it might have been difficult getting them off without a breaker bar so with all these lug nuts loose
We're going to lift the vehicle the reason why we keep them on is because right now
There's a lot of pressure on this tire if we loosen the lug nuts
And we're on a tilt or something the tire could fall [off] in the vehicle could drop
So here's everything you'll need to lift your vehicle. I like using a quick pump jack it makes your life easier
You can see with a couple of pumps the Jack will lift the car up really quickly
Obviously [with] the weight of the vehicle it's not that fast
But you can see it does lift it up quickly [you]
[also], want to make [sure] you have a pair of Jack stands that could support the weight of your vehicle. This [is]
4,500 pounds
Which is no problem for my van and just [to] show you guys who don't know you turned the handle here
counterclockwise, and then the Jack will lower and
Then when you want to raise the vehicle you twist this clockwise until you can't twist it anymore
And that makes it so that you could lift the vehicle up
So a little trick that I have I use pieces of wood in this case I use plywood the plywood protects
driveway because when you have the way of the vehicle on the Jack and
Specifically when you have the way of the vehicle on these jack stand edges here that go into the ground
There's very little surface [area] here
so these are like sink into your driveway and damage your driveway for
[where] you're supposed to jack up [your] car consult your owners manual in my case
I'm jacking it up from the engine cradle in the front this will lift both tires up evenly and quickly and since I'm doing a
Front brake job. I'll only have to lift the car once so now we're going to go underneath the vehicle and
Here's the Jack buck where you jack the car up front you want to be very careful not everything underneath the car is meant to
Have pressure on it. Especially the weight of the vehicle
[so] definitely consult your owners manual to see where you're supposed to jack up [your] vehicle
Typically if you have a front differential or a rear differential
It's safe to jack up your vehicle from the bottom of the differential you can see I'm jacking it up right there
But close right behind it is the oil pan and if you didn't know what you're doing
And you put your jack on there you would crush the oil pan and maybe cause major
Damage! and right behind the oil pan is another flat surface
That's the transmission oil pan
Another thing that you don't want to jack up on! and then right next to the oil pan is this catalytic converter another flat surface?
If you try to jack it up on there, you'll cause even more damage!
So definitely know where you need to jack up [your] vehicle in my case
I'm jacking it up right from the crossmember that cradles the engine
I'm right in the middle, and you can see it sits on there like that if you have a nice car
And you don't want to damage the metal
it's nice and
powder-Coated and clean use a piece of wood in [between] the Jack and the metal so if you're going to take this method to jack
Your vehicle up from the front or from the rear in the middle you want to try to make sure that your jack is in
The middle of the car so when you lift it up
The car doesn't Lean to one side or the other because sometimes if you put it too far over
The car will actually lean and you won't get the other tire off the ground
from doing this so many times I know on this van that jack actually has to be over a little bit you can see the
Ford Emblem there it's over to the driver's side a little and that would be perfect, so this will lift up straight
So now you'll see how our rapid pump Jack will lift your vehicle up quicker
Now with both tires up in the air
We're going to go ahead and put the Jack stands under the vehicle
so you don't want to slide your whole body underneath [just] in case that something bad happens like the vehicle falls off the Jack or
The jack gives out so to put the Jack stand in what I do is I extend my arm underneath just line Jack stands up
On to where you need to put the jack stand so you can consult your owners manual for that as well in my case
There's a nice piece right here
That's nice and thick that's part of that whole cross beam that I just jack the vehicle up on
So I'm just going to lift this up
Until it can't go up any more and that sides done
I'll do the same thing for the other side
So now I'm going to make sure [that] everything is clear and out of the way
I'm going to grab the Jack arm and I'm going to twist the Jack arm counterclockwise very slowly and let the vehicle drop slowly as
The vehicle drops on watching the Jack stands and I want to slowly fall [on] [to] the jack stands
So once the Jack stands are supporting the weight of the vehicle
I take the Jack and I [jack] it up, but I don't lift the car
I just get it so [that] it touches the bottom so if the jack stands give out for any reason
You have triple protection [-] Jack stands and one Jack now before you get your tire off and do any work on your car what?
You want to do is you want to shake the car?
Like this give it a nice push like you don't want to be soft you want to be hard because you're going to be under
There, so shake the car back and forth and this is solid this isn't going anywhere
So now I can finish showing you how to take the tire off remember the lugs are loose
So now we're just going to take our lug wrench and twist it like that makes it really easy to get these lug nuts off
and
This last lug nut you have to be careful because now there's nothing holding the tire on so the tire is going to want to
Potentially slip off now to get the tire [off]
I find it easiest to get one hand and put it back behind here
And you can grab the tire and then get your other hands and put it here
So just [one] hand here and one hand on the other side of the tire
And it comes right off
The final thing when you have your tire off what you want to do is you want to slide it underneath the vehicle?
By sliding the tire underneath the vehicle that gives you another safety feature so that if the vehicle does drop it falls on your Rim
And not on you now that you safely got the tire off
You could do whatever job that you need to get done and now I'll show you how [to] put the tire back on so before
you put the tire on what I like to do is I like to put this peg at the top so I know how to
Line the tire properly and with that peg lined up at the top
I can line [up] the rim here and see that. I need to move the
Top hole right there light tires are easy
You can easily lift light tires up because they're not heavy, but if you have a big truck tire or in this case
I guess these tires are a little bit heavy
[I'll] show you a technique to use so the technique that you use is you put your two feet on the side like that with
Your shoes on and [you] just rock the tire move your foot over
Just like that now the tire is suspended and you [could] easily lift with your toes and with your legs and move it around
Just get in under here
Use your feet
Rock the tire up on your shoes and
[then] move the Rim
Right on to the hub now with the tire up on the hub one of the bolts is going to stick out the most
So you just get your lug nut on that one
Push down to expose more threads on these bottom ones
Make sure when you put in the lug nuts on they spin on without any resistance
Which if these are giving you resistance as you screw it in that means that your cross threading it and that's not good
So they should all just spin on nice and easy
And now with all the lug nuts on push the tire
To make sure that it's seated properly and it is
So now our tire is still off the ground the car is still raised up
But what we're going to do is we're going to use
the Tire Iron here to try to snug it up a little bit more you're not going to be able to tighten these all the
Way up in the air
So you just want to get your tire iron on here, and just give it a quick turn like that
So I just tighten that one and this next thing about to tell you is super important
You want to go in a star Pattern when you're tightening down the lug nuts
I just tighten that one down
You could pick that one or that one the next one so you go from this one to that one that one to that one?
That one to that one that one to that one you go in a star pattern [to] evenly tighten the wheel to the hub
So pretty much tighten the opposite lug nut so I tighten that one now let's tighten this one again
You just get it snug, and then [a] quick jerk
Tighten it and then quick jerk and now [I] tighten that one that one that one we're going to go across to this one
tighten it up
Quick jerk and then the last one is right down here tighten [that] up
Quick jerk and you can see also the tire actually spins while it's in the air
So you're not going to be able to tighten this all the way with the car in the air?
But you definitely want to tighten it as much as you can so when you lower the car
The wheels tight against the hub and the wheel can't move outwards due to loose lug nuts
[if] the lug nuts are loose when you lower the car on the ground the wheel could be crooked and you won't be able to
Get the right torque specs when you're tightening the lug nuts
So now just [jack] the [car] up since we have our [jack] already where it needs to be
You just give it a few pumps
To get the Jack stands to fall down you just pull this up
And then we can take them out [now]
The key when lowering this you want to turn this counterclockwise
And you want to go slow because you don't want to drop a car on the ground
Good so with the tires on the ground all the jack stands in the jack off the car
we're going to tighten these lug nuts down to tighten these down what I'm going to use is a torque wrench a
Torque wrench allows you to properly tighten each bolt to the correct torque most rims are about a hundred foot-pounds
[I] know this room is 100. Foot pounds. I've worked on an Audi, and it's 90 foot pounds my truck is [100]
[foot] [pounds] it all varies, but very slightly for Rims
So you want to find your torque spec find the 100 mark here tighten it up to the hundred Mark?
Once we get the zero to that line that's 100 good
tighten down the end here
We have our 3/4 on here, and we're going to go in a star pattern
So now when we torque these down we want to make sure that these are tight first if you're able to tighten these easily
Then keep tightening them and go in a star pattern so here here here here [and] then here
We got these lug nuts tight enough when the car was up in the air
So now we're going to tighten them all the way and torque them
So we're going to start with the top one here
And we're going to go in a star pattern we're going to wait for a click when we hear it click. We're done
[ok] so with this top one here now. We're going to go to the bottom [1] Star Pattern
Now we're going to go to the one over here
And one across from that one
And the one down [here]
now we're going to check one more time because sometimes the rim will seat and
It'll actually sit on top of the hub better and leave some space so these could be torqued down more
So we're going to just check one more time
You can see these [could] be [tighten] just a little bit more
that one was pretty tight that
One was pretty tight
And that one is pretty tight. So now we could get our cover. This is pretty easy this just centers there
And just tap it in like that. We could go back here and kick these out the front one came out really easy
but sometimes one of them [will] be really hard to get out and what you do is you just get your heel and
[just] kick it out
Just like that, and [that's] how you take tire off and put the tire back on pretty much any vehicle
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