Anticipating Tire Change

[JPSpen]

New Shinko 244's getting here today for the R-65...

I'm anticipating having to cut the tires off the rims because there 24 years old.d..

I'll try to remember to take pics as I go... Should be fun and sporty...

John

[Barry]

I'm anticipating having to cut the tires off the rims because there 24 years old.d..

If you do cut them off the rubber is not too bad but the bead wire is tough as hell.   Good luck.

[tvrla]

My brother did that once in the 70s changing the tire on his Honda 750. That must be very tricky cutting the bead without damaging the rim!

You could slice it down the middle and not touch the bead, and that'd probably make removal easier.

Or leave it out in the sun all afternoon and that should soften it enough to make removal easy. Use actual tire lube - it's waaaaaay better than soapy water (what I used most of my lifetime - now I've got a gallon tub that'll last most of NEXT lifetime).

[mrbindc]

I have Shinko on the front, wheel hop is almost comical.  I need to take it back for better balancing or it might just be the tire...

[Barry]

That must be very tricky cutting the bead without damaging the rim!

It was. The front tire in particular was so hard and stiff you could let all the air out and it just stood there with no deflection. Breaking the bead was a big problem I tried the usual things like G clamps and a big vice with no luck. It succumbed to brute force. I'd heard of someone driving a car over the tire. This seemed more subtle and controlled. I jacked the car up with a trolley jack and dropped it slowly on the tire. Once the first section of the bead was broken I could get some tire lube in there and the rest of the bead came free relatively easily. Someone gave me a good tip to use tire lube to remove a tire as well as for mounting one. The pic is of the rear tire. I can't remember now if I cut the back tire off as well but I definitely did the front because I couldn't get enough of the bead down into the well which is very narrow on the front wheel. Unless you can do that you are wasting your time using force as the bead wire will not stretch. Using the well is the key to mounting and dsimounting tires. The new one went on easy enough. There was a world of difference between a supple new tire compared to the 28 year old one. The new one went on so easily I think I did it with no levers using hands and feet. Seating the bead was another story of course. This was my first experience with deep rim alloy wheels and I couldn't believe how hard it was compared to the spoked wheels on all my previous bikes.  

[R65LS]

 I gotta laugh:  what Barry did is exactly what I did .... use car weight to push the tire off the bead.

 I have a large horizontally-flat bumper on my car.  I put the R65 tire on the concrete floor, then used a hydraulic jack between tire bead and bumper underside.  Worked Great !!

Cheers,

Carl

[Ed Miller]

The new tires aren't tubeless type tires.  They are much softer and thinner, I think.  

How old was that Avon you cut up?  It still looked pretty good, until the hacksaw episode.

[Barry]

How old was that Avon you cut up?It still looked pretty good, until the hacksaw episode.
 

There was some tread left but not much and it was squared off which affected the handling crossing raised white lines (not to mention it's age !). If I recall it was a Metzeler Block something or other and if it was the original fitted from new which is a possiblity it had done 9259 miles.