DIY, motorcycle tire changing. a question or two.

[MMARSH]

Originally Posted by javadog

I learned, back in the 80s, that I have better things to do then manually swap tires. What cured me was trying to get a rear tire off of a sport bike. I ended up using a car lift at the dealership I ran to break the bead loose.

I agree 100% I'm over it.

[javadog]

I started riding motorcycles in the mid-1970s and I’ve never had a flat, either on-road or off. Pack a cell phone and a credit card, you’ll be fine.

[vash]

I’ve had flats. Hell I just had a flat. It’s always been the back tire for me. 100%

Our wildfires flooded our neighborhoods with carpenters. Those guys scatter nails like grass seed. They should make them pay for their own nails. They would load their bags more carefully, more frugally. I see nails all the time now on one road. When I walk my dog. I think they fall from the trucks.

[911boost]

I ended up in the boonies one time on my dirt bike on a very rocky train and got two flats.

It sucked hard.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by javadog

I learned, back in the 80s, that I have better things to do then manually swap tires. What cured me was trying to get a rear tire off of a sport bike. I ended up using a car lift at the dealership I ran to break the bead loose.

I will damn near build a motorcycle from scratch but I will not swap tires. My local dealer will mount and balance them for about 10 bucks a wheel, well worth it. No damage to the tire or wheel, no cussing, no Band-Aids needed.

Your sense of adventure may direct you down this path, but you will be back.

Originally Posted by MMARSH

I agree 100% I'm over it.

Yup. My sport bike - my 900 Super Sport - is what cured me. I described my home made bead breaker earlier in this thread. I've used it once. The front wasn't so bad, but the rear was something else. I even made up some new words trying to get that one off. Still do the dirt bike, but that's it.

Originally Posted by vash

I just to try it in case I get a flat in the boonies. My bike has spoked wheels, do it runs tubes. Complications

Interesting at the least.

Fixing a flat and changing a tire are two entirely different things. The first bead is easy, and it's all you have to do to fix a flat. Just get that one side off over the rim, and the tube comes right out. No need to mess with the other side.

[Jeff Higgins]

Yes, I carry plug kits on the Road King and the Ducati. Easiest fix there is. Hell, I carry one in the 911 as well - no room for any kind of a spare with my 100 liter tank. The Sportster and XR650L still run tubes, but their beads are easily broken on one side, so a patch kit it is. I don't even take the wheel off - I just find a place to lay the bike over. Granted, the tube is still "trapped" unless you take the wheel at least partway off, but if all you want to do is patch it, leave the wheel in place and save yourself some work.

[MMARSH]

I dont leave home without a tire plug/patch kit...one time long ago, waiting two hours on a police tow truck to pick me and my police bike up from the side of the road at 3am and a very cold 40 degrees, cured me of that.

I ride to far off the beaten path and away from cell service to count on help....on the sport bikes I'll use the big Co2 cartridges. On the BMW and KTM I throw a small pump in my tool kit.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

as I said-you can run tubless if you use 3M 5200 on the spoke holes.

How does it hold up when you tighten the spokes? Wouldn't that tear the sealant? I'm trying to picture the inside of the rim - don't the end nuts on the spokes protrude to the inside, so when they are turned to tighten the spokes, it would tear the sealant? Or does that part not turn?

[Jeff Higgins]

That's kind of what I thought. To be fair, though, I haven't had to tighten a spoke on the Sportster for an awfully long time. A decade or more, maybe. The XR650L, by the nature of it, needs spokes tightened far more often.