From: David Svoboda

> Do you actually change your own tires and balance them?

Yes. As a matter of fact, I just did a front tire yesterday.

> I usually remove the
> wheel and bring it into the shop. It saves on labor charges plus they'll change
> the tire while I wait.

They don't lavish the loving care that I do. My routine is to remove the wheel, remove the brake disks, and remove the tire, and remove the wheel bearings. Then I take the wheel out in the yard with a bucket of soapy water and a Scotchbrite pad, and clean it up. Most importantly, I clean up the bead area. (A buddy of mine just had a bead leak on his Hawk GT. That won't happen if you clean the bead area well.

Then, I put on the new tire (takes about ten minutes, max), and take the wheel to the corner filling station to set the bead. Pop, Pop. Then I reinstall the bearings, (I replace the bearings every other tire change-- I get double sealed bearings fairly cheap at a bearing house), and balance the wheel. To balance it I just hang the axle between a couple of chairs and spin the wheel. (I bought a large box of stick-on weights a few years ago, and that's last me for twenty years). That gets the balancing accurate enough that I can notice the difference in how much duct-tape I use to hold the trial weight on. In fact, I've had a computer spin balance done before, and taken it home and used my chair method and found them several grams off. A computer spin balancer isn't more accurate, it's just faster and easier.

Bearing balancing like that is also a REAL good measure of how good your bearings are. And you can throw a dial-guage on the setup to check wheel and disk runout while you're there. Tell me a shop does THAT.

> plus I think they carry wheel bearings also.

Get the bearings at a regular bearing supply place. Look in the phone book. Take the bearings out, take them to the place, and tell them you want double-sealed versions. They'll ask you whether you want rubber or steel seals. Take your pick.

I dunno if it was me that wrote what you're thinking about, but I just replaced and balanced a front tire on my Connie this weekend, so it wouldn't suprise me.

I don't have a standard file that I can post, but in a nutshell:

1. Make SURE you've got good wheel bearings. Put the brake disks on.

2. Prop the wheel on the axle, hanging across a couple of chairs. I like to use a big woodworking clamp to hold the axle from rolling. Now spin the wheel, and go read the net for a while. You want to spin it pretty good, or the lube in the bearings might pack up and give it some resistance. So it takes a while to spin down. Once it has stopped completely, take a piece of chalk and mark the tread at the top. Spin again, a little slower this time if you want. When it stops again, mark the top. Once more, just for completeness, and mark it again. The mean point between the marks is your light spot. The farther out of balance you are, the closer the marks will be together. If the marks are spaced way away from each other, try spinning and marking a few more times. If they're distributed around the whole edge of the tire, you're in perfect balance.

3. (Most manuals imply all the marks will be right at the light spot. This is not true unless you're WAY out of balance, or you're using oiled, not greased, bearings.)

4. If you have a dial-caliper outfit, this is a wonderful time to check the runout of the wheel and disks.

5. So when you've found the light spot, take a little duct tape and some weights (you can buy stick-on weights in bulk from mailorder places) and put in on the inside of the rim at the light point. Now hold the light point at 90 degrees to the side and let go. If the weights go up, you need more, down, less. Don't be afraid to snip a weight in two, and don't forget to account for the duct tape and a little bit of silicon sealant you'll use to seal the weight on.

6. Finally, take off the taped-on weight, clean the area with your favorite grease-cutting solvent, take the backing paper off the weight, and stick it down. Then take some silicon sealant and smear it right along the edges of the weight to keep out water and muck. If you're paranoid about it falling off, you can very carefully put a little duct-tape on (after the silicon dries).

7. Just for a warm fuzzy, you can clean off all your chalk marks and spin the wheel a few times.

8. And you're done.

This method, if you have good bearings and are patient, is MUCH more accurate than computer balancing at a shop. I've never seen a shop bring a wheel closer than about five grams (a full stick-on weight is seven grams), yet I can differentiate TWO grams (as weighed on my reloading scale).From: Steve Moseley

The front axle nut should be torqued to 65 ft-lbs. The nut is on the left side of the bike. I use a cheater bar to break it loose. Torquing to 1,065 ft-lbs won't stop the wobble, since wobble is due to loose steering bearings. When you put the front wheel back on and get everything on and the axle torqued, loosen both pinch bolts, squeeze the brakes, turn the wheel a bit and squeeze them again to center the wheel, then retighten the pinch bolts. I know it's obvious, but it took me about 4 tire changes before I figured out why the bike wouldn't go straight with my hands off the handle bars.

From: David Svoboda

As for the question about how long things last, I change wheel bearings every two tire changes, at least. Wheel bearings are cheap, and since I do my own tire changing, it's easy and available, and only takes me an extra half-hour. I save lots of money and effort by buying double-sealed bearings from a local bearing-supply house.

From: David R. Neal

DO NOT USE SOAPY WATER TO INSTALL A NEW TIRE !
There is a fluid made especially for this job (I have seen some from Michelin for sale and have been told it is a pretty common item from a number of manufacturers). This "stuff" lubricates the tire for ease of installation (just like soapy water), but unlike soap solutions, when this fluid dries it becomes extremely tacky. You may or may not have problems with the Concours using soap, but a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . .

I and a couple of friends (all on sportbikes) were visiting a local racer/shop owner in another town. As we were preparing to leave, the shop owner looked at my buddy's bike (A VFR 1000) and asked what all that "crap" was on his tire (there were streaks on both tires running from the bead outward towards the tread-excess soap solution which had been flung outward by centrifugal force).
"You mount new tires with soap solution?", he inquired.
"Guilty as charged", replied my friend.
"My advice to you is to go home and get that crap off your tires as soon as possible" said the owner.

Upon closer inspection we found that the mark on the rear tire (mounted at the valve stem) had rotated 180 degrees (at least), and the front tire mark showed it had rotated 90 degrees (at least). The shop owner informed my friend that his rear tire had probably rotated under acceleration and the front tire had probably rotated under braking. He said if my friend was lucky, the tires had only rotated 180 and 90 degrees, but it was very possible they had actually turned more than 1 complete revolution on each wheel. THIS IS WHY THEY MAKE A FLUID SPECIFIC FOR THIS JOB!

While the Concours may not have the horsepower of a VFR1000 (but it probably doesn't miss by much), due to the high torque of the Connie as well as the fact that it's carrying a helluva lot more weight than a VFR, I would think it would be a good candidate for a repeat of the above scenario.

I dunno about you folks, but I would feel a lot better knowing my tires are not running around loose on my rims. Working for Goodyear, we see a lot of this phenomenon on F14s during catapult launches but that's another story.......;->

David Neal
COG 32