Bead buddy for bicycle tire installation

Simple device which clamps to a bicycle rim to keep the bead from unseating while working with particularly tricky or tight-fitting tire installs.

Saw a post on a facebook bike mechanics' forum about the Motion Pro Trail Bead Buddy which is a motorcycle tool designed to keep the tire bead in place while installing tires. The post mentioned that this was a great tool for installing Cush Core tire inserts but it could be useful for all manner of difficult tire installations. Just like my recent clone of a Stan's NoTubes presta valve nut loosening tool, when I saw it, I thought "I bet I could 3D print that".

So, a little work in Fusion 360 and here we have it. I went through a couple of iterations and found a design that fit well on any of the wheels I had on hand, and I had one with a tire that was a little tight to fit, and it sure seemed to help make the installation easier. Forgive the rough surface finish on the printed part - that's an issue with my printer I haven't bothered to figure out yet.

The knurled nut is just a McMaster 92545a183 imported through Fusion, and prints up and fits nicely.

This would also work nicely with my Park TL-4 clone tire lever

Print Settings

Printing this on a modern printer, I'd do 4 or 5 shells at least with a 0.2mm layer height on a 0.4mm nozzle. (Adjust as necessary for larger nozzles, all of my stuff is 0.4mm.) This should make infill less important, but if you feel it necessary, by all means drive it up.

Ancient print settings for a printer I haven't had in years:

Printed with 5 shells to get decent strength so it doesn't need to be 100% infill, 20% infill seems to have been fine. Honestly, 5 shells is probably overkill, but it worked. Originally printed at 0.087mm to get good results on the threads, but later prints with 0.131mm layer heigh also worked well. I did have one print where the thumb screw was 0.087mm and the body was 0.131mm and that did not want to thread in, so I guess it's important to make sure the layer height matches between the two items.