How to and why install Rim Locks, UHD Inner Tubes & Balance Wheels on Honda CRF250L

hi everyone it's shem here's another video tutorial this time on how to install heavy-duty inner tubes rim locks and how to balance your wheels before i jump to it i just wanted to give you an overview why i decided to go ahead with it and for those of you who don't know what are the rim locks but if you cannot be bothered to watch it just use the shortcuts in the description down below to jump to the appropriate section okay let's begin so starting with the reasons why i've never really changed a motorcycle tire before and i thought it would be a good idea to do it in the comfort of my own garage as opposed to trying it for the first time when i'm stuck in the middle of nowhere also i thought it would be good to try the tools that i carry with me to see if they're up to the task and if not modify my toolkit accordingly as opposed to finding out that something doesn't perform as intended uh when i'm far far away from home but the more important reason for that is that when you go off-roading it's recommended that you lower your tire pressure significantly especially if you're in soft or moody terrain but that comes with couple of risks so the first of those is that when you significantly reduce your tire pressure you're increasing the likelihood of your inner tube being pinched between the tire and the rim which obviously results in a flat inner tube and so i tried to mitigate that risk by installing a heavy duty inner tubes which have significantly thicker side walls than the stock inner tubes that are currently on the bike another risk or another challenge that you might face when running a low tire pressure is that your tire might slide against the rim which then pulls the inner tube and results in shredder valve being ripped off which then results in a flat tire this is especially true for more powerful bikes on the rear wheel nonetheless the risk is there so i thought it would be a good idea to mitigate it by installing some rim locks and i decided to go for the lightweight ones from motion pro as you probably know from my other videos i don't like to increase um the weight of the bike so i'm trying to find the lightest components i can before i install them on the bike for those of you who don't know what the rim locks are and if you have a look at my drawing over here as you can see you've got a tire here in black and green is the inner tube and blue is the rim and the red is the rim lock and as you can see the the principle behind it is relatively straightforward so you've got a piece of either a metal coated in rubber or some alloy or or plastic and then you've got a threaded stem running down and then you've got a locking nut on the other side of the rim and what it does when you tighten the knots it applies the sideways pressure onto your tire and it locks it between the rim and the rim lock this prevents it from moving against the rim relatively simple but very effective and some some rims come already pre-drilled for this so you don't have to drill into the factory rims i'm lucky enough that the crf 250 l already comes with holes uh in rims for installing rim locks and they've got like a little rubber plug in them so you just have to pull that off and you're ready to go the holes are on the opposite side of the shredder valves so it's it's pretty much ready for the installation um yeah that's pretty much it so let's let's crack on with the installation process we're going to start with um removing those two bolts the clamping bolts i think they're number 10 and then we're gonna remove the axle bolts uh it's number 14 allen key so let's do it okay so the front wheel has now been removed um and before we start taking the tire off a little precaution i always think it's a good idea to put something clean in between the brake pads just to prevent them from moving in uh well it shouldn't happen but in case you forget about it or someone accidentally squeeze it in the front brake sometimes the pistons go in and they don't go all the way back so you have to pry them out between you you can put the from the skin and so on so uh it's just to prevent the hassle nothing more than that also a little tip when you when you're changing um the tire it's always good to put something underneath the wheels so you're not applying the pressure on the disc or in the case of real wheel on the uh on the attached to the real wheel last thing you want is to bend or damage the disc or something like this so for the sake of couple of pieces of wood or something else that you can find i think it's always a good idea to do that okay we'll start the process by removing the nut from the shredder valve and by removing the inner valve and just to release all pressure from the inner tube right so the pressure has been released and the valve has been taken out so it's time to break the bit and what i mean by it uh if you look at the drawing over here each tire has like a metal wire um which is referred to as a bit that goes around the perimeter of the rim and when that wire is in the higher part of the rim it kind of locks in in place and it well not in case of the inner tube tires but it creates the seal and what you want to do first before you start taking it over that rim you want to ensure that all of the bead is in the lower part of the rim that gives you more room to play so the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna apply the side pressure just to get that bit down to the lower part of the of the rim and then we're gonna begin taking it over the edge also because this bike has only one disc at the front it's probably a better idea if i flip it around to minimize the risk to the disc but if you've got a bike where the discs are on both sides just make sure that you've got something underneath before you start applying the pressure to to the tire as you can see the stock inner tube has now been removed the whole process went much better than i initially anticipated because i've never changed the inner tube on the motorbike i was expecting to be struggling with taking the bit over the edge of the rim but stock tires on the honda crf250l seem to be fairly compliant so it wasn't an issue for me at all and based on that i don't think it should be an issue for you either before we move to the next stage i just wanted to quickly show you the difference between the stock inner tube and the heavy duty inner tube and as you can see it's not only the size but also the weight so if we pop that on the weight scale and that's just over half kilogram 520 grams right so that that's actually quite good then if we put the duty inner tube on the weight scale or that's a whopping 1282 grams so nearly 1.3 kilograms which is significantly heavier than the stockiner tube so if you watched any of my other bike videos you know that uh uh i'm passionate about keeping the weight of the bike down and adding an extra well over 600 grams of unsprung weight it's not ideal but as everything it's a compromise between peace of mind when you go off-roading and you're lowering your tire pressure or getting uh getting a flat tire and possibly so i'm gonna have to see how i feel about it if i can actually tell any difference and take it from there i can always you know change it back if i don't feel uh like using the heavy one but for jumping a fancy giving it a go anyway let's move to the next stage the next step is to install the rim lock so before we can do that we're gonna have to remove that rubber uh insert in there um and put it in obviously i don't have to take the tire off completely we're just replacing the inner tube and installing the rim lock so there's no need before taking off the tire completely and once the rim lock is inserted i'm just gonna put the note on the thread just a little bit to prevent it from falling in but obviously at this stage i'm not gonna tighten it yet and then once the rim lock is in place i'm gonna put the heavy duty inner tube in and when you do that just remember and there is a top nut will have to be taken off because that's gonna secure it from the inner side of the rim and the one that's near the the valve bottom has to stain it acts as a kind of a little spacer one thing i forgotten to mention is where the rim lock hole uh is pre-drilled in the rim um we're gonna have to cut out or hole punch a little hole in the rubber tape that runs within the rim that protects the inner tube from getting in contact with the spokes so before we can install it we're gonna have to do this one okay so we have a in our tube installed and uh shredded valve is protruding here i put the lock nut on it just to prevent it from coming back in same with the rim lock obviously as you can see it's fairly loose and that's how we want it for time being and before i put the tire back on uh to to minimize the risk of pinching the inner tube i'm gonna put a little bit of pressure just so the inner tube uh sort of takes that donut shape just enough so it's still very soft and playable but it will prevent it from kind of getting uh caught between the tire and the rim so i i'm gonna do that now and i will begin the process of putting the tire back on okay so we have the tire bag on the rim now the rim lock has been installed i'm gonna have to tighten that the uh manual states uh i think 13.4 newton meters i'm not gonna be able to put the torque wrench on it because i cannot get a socket on it and that the top is wider than the not here so unfortunately i'm just gonna have to trust my elbow and obviously the inner tube has been installed as well and that's got a no damage and i'm gonna have to tighten that up a little bit and i've checked around the perimeter of the rim and the line on the tire is evenly spaced uh across the whole perimeter of the rim which is good so um the next step is to balance the wheel okay so in order to balance the wheel we need to ensure that the axle is level and that the wheel can spin freely so no resistance from the bearings or anything else that might be sort of touching the wheel um i'm using my old mountain bike tool that i use to use when i build mountain bike wheels but you can probably use anything for this purpose as long as it keeps the wheel level so um the idea behind balancing the wheel is that um the heaviest point of the wheel will always end up at the bottom so because we've installed a rim lock in here um this is the heaviest part of the wheel now i've i've checked the weight of the motion pro rim log and it's i think 44 grams so we've got an extra 44 grams here that if we don't do anything about it and we go above a certain speed it will offset the balance of the wheel and it will have a lot of vibrations uh coming through the handlebars so uh what we need to do now is to find the spot on the opposite side of the wheel and add an extra weight there in order to offset that balance you might actually end up adding more weight in here than 44 grams and the reason for that is that weight of that or most of it is on the other side of the wheel so there is a bit more lever leverage in there but you know we're gonna try it and see but first in order to determine what's the heaviest spot on the wheel you have to you know i already know because i've checked but it just to illustrate the point if i pull it up and let it go the wheel will always go back to the heaviest spot which is round about where the uh where the rim log is so we're gonna look at installing some weights on the opposite side but before i do that i just wanted to quickly show you different types of weights you can use and initially i thought i'd be able to get away with this little stack on weights but i i was not even thinking that that's gonna be enough to have set the 44 grams of the um rim lock weight so i purchased some reusable brass weights which you basically can install on there on the spokes and titan with the allen key and i wouldn't necessarily trust this especially when you go off-roading in harsh condition so i'll probably put a bit of loctite before i tighten them and i'll put the tape around them so even if they get loose they won't fly off the fly of the spoke and but in principle i prefer this because i can use them again when i change the tires and so on and this one's well i'd have to have a lot of this stuck on the wheel in order to have set that balance so um well let let me begin with adding some weight zone i'll check the weights of individual uh ones and i will start with perhaps around 40 44 grams and see how how the balance of the wheel looks like as you can see i now added some weights on and as i expected i've checked the weight of those weights and it's 84 grams which is 40 grams more than the weight of the rim lock on the opposite side so just bear down in mind when you get a grimlocks the lighter the better it's all on sprung weight so you don't want to add too much if it can be helped so anyway just to illustrate the point i can turn the wheel in any position really and if i stop it and let it go the wheel stays where it is so there is no one spot around the perimeter of the wheel that's heavier than any other which is ideally what you want so before i install the wheel back on the bike i will just put some loctite in that threaded allen pin and then i'm gonna wrap some tape around it uh for additional security we are now ready to install the wheel back onto the bike and before we do that we have to remove that bit from between the brake pads obviously then we're gonna have to insert the spacers back onto the wheel and then once the wheel is in between the four clicks we'll put the axle board axle bolt through and torque it up the axle ball torque is 73.5 newton meters and pinch bolts are 20 newton meters each and i'm gonna try to do it all using the tools that i carry with me but obviously once i finish uh i i will torque it up to the correct specification because i don't really carry a torque wrench in my portable tool kit so i'm gonna use my garage torque wrench and see how far i was when using my tools and that i carry on the bike so let's begin okay so before we move to the rear wheel i just wanted to say that it turns out that when using my tool kit uh i torqued it up probably more than i should have uh whenever i use torque wrenches afterwards both clicked straight away so just to be on the safe side i'm gonna release the pin pinch balls and release that and torque it up using the torque wrenches from the start and then torque the pinch bolts back on and then we're gonna start with the rear wheel in order to remove the rear wheel we're gonna have to loosen up the um axle nuts on the right hand side of the bike i'm gonna try to do it using my motion pro tire lever it's number 24 at least i hope it is yeah and and then on the other side we've got number 19 which i've got my modify spanner uh to do that so i'm gonna try to do it using these two tools then we're gonna remove the axle and then we're gonna have to slide the wheel forward in order to remove the chain from the rear okay so now the willies of the bike we can begin releasing the pressure by removing the valve from the shredder valve and then yeah taking the tire of the rim and removing the inner tube installing the rim lock basically the same routine as as with the front wheel so instead of me uh talking i'm just gonna film it all and you can see but it's it's basically no difference to what we did for the front wheel also i just wanted to mention because when i disassemble the front wheel the axle and everything looked well greased up and nice and clean so i did not really put any grease when i was installing it back in however the real wheel was quite dirty and i could already see some a little bit of a corrosion uh where the bearing or or something was sitting on the axle so uh i've cleaned it all up um it's much easier when the wheel is off the bike obviously and then i'm gonna put some grease when i'm gonna be assembling it back so it's just good for maintenance really so yeah let's go with it uh this okay so just so you can see the difference between the inner chips that's the stock one and it's fairly light this is the heavy-duty one which is well significantly bigger and thicker so we'll do the same thing as we did with the front front ones so the rear one the stock one is 739 grams versus the heavy duty one which is 1659 so yeah significantly heavier but well if you want to run low pressure that's what you have to do so let's continue the installation process so the inner tube is now in it was absolute police to get it in and there is probably a technique to do it but i haven't figured it out yet anyway it's in so i'm gonna continue the process of putting the tire back on and then we'll crack on with with balancing the wheel hey okay so the wheel is ready for balancing now and similarly to the front wheel uh if you have a lock if i let it go in this position it always goes down to where the heaviest point is and so we're gonna have to put some weights on the opposite side of that in order to balance it and i've checked the weight of the rim lock and the rear one weighs 79 grams and but again because of it's on the other side of the rim i'm gonna have to put a lot more weight in here i'm kind of estimating between hundreds to to 250 160 grams okay so i finished balancing the wheel and as you can see in the weights are on i put a drop of loctite in the thread and some tape for extra security in case they came loose and i had to put 125 gram in order to counterbalance the rim log which is 79 gram and so yeah this is pretty much as expected and as you can see now i can put will in any location and it doesn't go back to its original position so uh that that's really what we wanted to achieve here yeah if you have a look you can put it like this stop it there release it and the wheel stays where it is so all the points around the perimeter of the wheel should be should have similar weight now okay so we're ready to put the wheel back on the bike and before we do that i'm gonna put a little bit of grease on the axle just to prevent it from corroding and nothing else really um then i'm gonna put the spacers back into the wheel and then we're gonna insert the wheel align it with the brake caliper and then we're gonna have to put it forward slightly in order to put a chain around the once this is done we'll try to put the axle in and put that nut on the other side and torque it up to i believe manual states 88 newton-meters but before i use the torque wrench i will try to use my motion pro lever as this is something that i will have with me on my bike trips uh another torque wrench so i'm gonna do that first and see how far out i was when i finished it off with a torque wrench to finish off the video i just wanted to share my impressions with you about the fitting process and as you can probably tell from the video you've just watched and it went relatively well and i was expecting to be struggling with putting that tire on the rim and taking it off and no issues there whatsoever the one issue i've had and it was more so in the real wheel than on the front one it was when i was trying to fit the heavy duty inner tube and navigating the valve through the rim hole was an absolute pain i mean you're trying to put your fingers in between the tire beat and the rim and you kind of tr try to navigate through and and it's it took me probably five or ten minutes just to do that so um not ideal and not a very smooth way of doing it since then um i found a youtube video where the guy shows a different way of doing it i'm gonna put a link to that video in the description down below so just have a look at it and i would definitely recommend trying that and because the the way i've done it it's it's it's not ideal okay so overall fitting process absolutely happy with it so how do they feel do they feel any different so i've done so far about 100 maybe 150 miles of road and in terms of how their suspension performs i couldn't tell any difference i was expecting maybe a bit loss of sensitivity or something like this because of an extra weight in the wheels you know and sprung mass and and so on but i i cannot tell the difference so overall i'm pretty happy with that the one difference i could tell was with how the bike accelerates and you know it's not massive but you can tell that there is a bit of there is more weight rotating weight and because the bike doesn't seem to be as nimble as it was uh with the lighter wheels on so again not major and it wouldn't stop me from doing that but something that i've noticed i thought i'll i'll share it with you so yeah that's pretty much it uh overall i'm i'm happy with how it went and how it feels now and um if you have any comments or questions write them down in the comment section down below and i'll try to do my best to to answer them have a good day all the best

Channel: Shem

Views: 2,724

Rating: 4.9560437 out of 5

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Id: AYtk1IJgI4w

Length: 31min 50sec (1910 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 18 2020