The 56 owner’s manual indicated how Detroit felt a manual effort at Tire Dismount should be handled.

The basic tool was the car bumper used as it would normally be used when jacking up the rear of the car.  Another tool needed was a tire iron.  I have also found a small sledge useful when installing the tire. The 56 tire jack base jack had a radius cut in it matching the diameter of the wheel rim for this purpose.

The following online video mostly follows the owner’s manual with a few variation like welding the base of the jack and putting the jack, without the bumper attachment, into a trailer hitch….otherwise it could be a 56 video!:

Note that the person doing the dismount has placed a foot on the tire to hold it down and in place. Not mentioned in the video is the fact that rear wheel drive cars can easily roll when the rear tires clear the ground and blocking the front tires are consequently mandatory.  Also not mentioned is that when the rear tires clear the ground the jack gets unstable and could kick out and injure you if you are not mindful of that instability. Due to the safety hazards involved one could not imagine a current day car owner’s manual providing this type of info.

After you have done a number of these tire dismounts or mounts it will be evident that dismounting a tire off an 18 inch diameter wheel is much easier than dismounting off a 13 inch diameter wheel. There is significantly more tire wall flexibility in the larger diameter wheels and tires so the older the car and larger the tire size makes the effort easier when doing a manual tire dismount or mount.