Changing Your Own Motorcycle Tires | Five Tips

[Music] this is not a tutorial on how to change your own tires there are enough of those on the Internet in this video we would just like to share five tips with you things we learned from changing the tires on our Yamaha r6 tip number one replace old tires we often think that where is the only reason to replace your tires but when you've bought a secondhand motorcycle like this 2007 r6 it's always a good idea to check how old the tires are we all know that rubber hardens and dries out over time and this will make the tire behave differently than it's supposed to and that can be dangerous especially when braking and accelerating hard we have experienced this firsthand when we first rode the r6 we could feel that the back tire was all over the place so on high-performing motorcycles we recommend using tires that are no older than three or four years how do you know how old your tires are well on the sidewall of every tire there is a four digit code indicating the week and year in which the tyre was produced here you can see ruben pointing to the numbers three zero zero seven meaning that the tire was produced in the thirtieth week of 2007 so even though the tread on the tire is perfectly fine the rubber compound is actually 13 years old as you can see the fresh rubber were putting on was manufactured in the 28th week of 2019 so that's perfect tip number two be organized and meticulous changing your tires involves quite a few steps and a few specialized tools so you need to organize yourself and do some basic planning because once your old tire is off the rim there's no going back and unless you want to have your bike's it useless in the garage while you wait for that pesky replacement part being shipped from China you better figure things out beforehand as you can see we did our research and used a Haynes manual for instructions so make sure you have everything you need before you start tire irons rim protectors wrenches and sockets grease etc don't forget this thing it's a hex tool for your front axle now tires are the only connection between your motorcycle and the ground so you need to take their installation process seriously all the nuts and bolts keeping your wheels attached to your bike are also pretty critical components so if there ever was a time to use the exact torque specifications as prescribed by the manufacturer this would be it be meticulous use a torque wrench and make sure to tighten the bolts in the correct order we won't go into this now but there's a very good reason why you need to tighten the pinch bolt on the forks last also when you are unfastening things like spacers and dust seals you might as well check their condition and clean them before you put them back on the bike tip number three use the information that is on the tire we've already talked about the manufacturing date being on the tire sidewall but there's a lot more information on there as well obviously the tire size is indicated and you always want to check that with the owner's manual there are other markings on the tire such as the arrow indicating the prescribed rotation of the tire this is important because motorcycle tires almost always have opposite tread patterns between front and rear here you can see the front and the rear tire side-by-side as they are supposed to go on the bike and you can clearly see how the patterns run differently this mainly has to do with the fact that the tread on the rear tire is designed to disperse water under acceleration whereas the pattern on the front tire is designed to disperse water under braking conditions tip number four use physics to your advantage removing a hardened tire that's been on a rim for thirteen years requires a lot of strength probably more than your body can muster so you'll need all the help you can get luckily you can use the forces of nature to your advantage what do we mean by that well take tire irons for example these are basically levers and you might remember that the longer the lever the greater the forces that you can exert on the load and that's why we recommend buying the longest tire irons you can find because you are going to need all the leverage you can get another way to make the job of removing and mounting a tire on a wheel rim a lot easier is to reduce the friction between the materials in other words use Lube and plenty of it you can use soapy water or just buy a tub of tire fitting paste like this one another tip is to use heat to your advantage heat will make the tire compound more malleable you don't need tire warmers or a heat gun for this just put a hairdryer inside the tire to make it more flexible tip number five make sure you want to do this changing your own tires is hard work even if you have all too specialized tools there's usually a lot of sweating and swearing involved so you might want to ask yourself whether it is worth all to hassle wouldn't you just rather pay a professional or small amount of money to install them for you in a matter of minutes the main reason we took this on was the fact that we were bored during the Cova 19 lockdown so will we be doing it again in the future we don't know but what do you think do you change your own tires or can't you be bothered let us know in the comments section you

Channel: Lowfliers

Views: 9,579

Rating: 4.816092 out of 5

Keywords: motorcycle, tire, tires, tyre, tyres, maintenance, wheel, rim, yamaha, r6, Michelin, Dunlop, Metzeler, Bridgestone, Pirelli, 180/55, pilot road, power rs, tire iron

Id: 7duh8ruSDt4

Length: 5min 49sec (349 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 19 2020