I haven't posted one of my crazy ideas in a while so here goes another one. I just finished making this tire roller dolly to be used on my next rear tire change. The last time I removed and put the rear tire on myself I was fighting for two hours trying to get it back on. Much of the time was spent trying to get the spacer washer back in, but I thought I still needed to make something to help get the tire in position and easily be able to rotate it to line up with the final drive splines. Using my feet under the edges of the tire was not very effective for me, requiring many 4 letter words and some words I'm sure have never been spoken before. I'm not sure what the wife was thinking as she tried to help!
After a great deal of pondering, I decided this was my best idea. I bought two 1" X 8" conveyor rollers off Amazon for $20. I used some 1 1/4" and 1" square tubing, two 4" square U-clamps, some 1/2" threaded rod, 1/4 X 20 tpi threaded chair glides, various 1/2" nuts and some custom cut square oak block I made to drive in the ends of the larger square tubing. I used the oak blocks for several reasons including holding the glides on, but mainly I could now tighten things down real tight without crushing the tubing. My original plan was to put caster wheels on my dolly, but that was going to be a lot of fabrication to keep it low profile. It became a "NOT" option even though I bought small casters. the 2 1/4 inches in height plus the swivel clearance was becoming a real problem. As it is, the tire can easily rest on the rollers and be jockeyed into position using the the handles on each side. It won't be rolling around (yet another fight) on the wheels either after I get it where I want it. Now I can get the tire in position, lower my lift to the correct shaft height and then rotate the tire on the rollers to get the splines lined up.
A couple more things...I wedged the rollers in front and behind my rear tire. I determined the center line distance for the rollers with the tire resting on a flat surface needed to be 13 1/2". I drill multiple holes inward and outward from that point so I could adjust the rollers and resting points of the tire on the rollers. I may add another hole or two inward, but I don"t think I will need it. Right now, as I have it, the tire should be riding about 3/4" off the ground when resting on the conveyor rollers. The total height of the dolly is only 1 5/8" with around 3/8" spacing under the long tubing. Very easy to put a pry bar under each side to micro lift the tire for any small line up issues. I may opt to bend my 4" square U-handles up slightly for more knuckle clearance, but at the moment there appears to be plenty of knuckle spacing. The large square tubing sections are 20' long and the smaller 1" cross tubing sections are 8 3/8" long. I may or may not paint it.
I guess that is about it...Here are some pictures in case you are interested.