Yeah, I tried the heat trick, and it does work to a certain extent, and it does stink the place up. That's ok for me, cause my dog has killed me sense of smell thanks to a dietary change. I used a heat gun and you really have to get the rims hot. I was getting mine up to about 325 or so (put the temp gun on it) for about 5 minutes. With a little tugging the tires did come off, but some rubber was left on the rims. The one set that I have done has not had any problems so far, even with a bit of rubber missing on the bead (EP, that was the set of stock rubbers and the HB rims I had down there when we bashed). It just took a bit more CA to fill the gaps. Unfortunately, I took my old set of tires off with heat the other day, and today I got a quart of acetone. I kind of got that backwards, but what the hell, that set was just about gone anyway.
I do have a bottle of Z-7 Debonder that is made by Pacer (same folks that make ZAP CA) I have used the Z-7 to completely disolve thick layers of CA. It contains acetone, but it has the consistancy of snot. This means it will leave a thick layer of debonding agent on the work area, unlike raw acetone which tends to run very easily and evaporate very quickly. I'll have to try some on the old HPI rims and see what it does to them. I'll let yall know what happens.
Whitt...