Odd question, can tires safely be mounted onto a three piece wheel WITHOUT the center of the wheel being in place?

I.e. the tire installed on the barrel/lip, then the center put in at a later time.

If it is OK is it best to leave the deflated?

thanks

 

If the lip/barrel were bolted together, you could put the tire on theoretically. But if the seal is disturbed in any way, you will need to dismount the tire to reseal the wheel. And yes, the tire would need to stay deflated until the wheel was fully assembled and torqued to spec.

Would be much less worry and hassle to just mount the tire after the wheel was fully reassembled and sealed.

 

How would you mount a tire without a wheel center to mount to a tire mounting machine? If you could get the halves to seal you'd have to mount the tire by hand.

 

The majority of tire mounting machines(aside from those for truck wheels) grip the lip or inner barrel of the wheel, not the center disk. So you could mount a tire if you bolted the lip and barrel together without a cetnerdisk and sealed it up. You wouldnt be able to balance it until the centerdisk was installed.

I still highly recommend completely building the wheel before a tire is mounted to it.