How To Change & Balance Your Own Motorcycle Tires | MC GARAGE

tired of paying someone else to mountain balance your tires why not do it yourself I'll show you how in this video from the motorcyclist garage motorcycle tires wear out fairly quickly and paying someone else to mountain balance them can really add up truth is the procedure isn't that hard so you will need some specialized tools including a valve core remover tire irons rim protectors Windex compressed air and finally a piece of carpet or a milk crate to work on and to balance your new tire you'll need a balance stand and some will ways a warm tire is more flexible and so a lot easier to work with so park your bike in the Sun to warm up your tires an easy way to put some heat in your rear tire is to spool up a nice smoky burnout Hey Prost anyway you might as well have some fun with it the first thing you need to do is use your valve core tool to remove the valve core next you'll need to coax the bead off the rim these be Pro tire irons from motion Pro have a built in bead breaker for that exact purpose spray a little Windex on the wheel to lubricate the rubber and then work the tool in between the rim and the bead you'll need to work the tire in several locations until it pops down off the shoulder and into the channel in the middle of the rim once you've work the bead off in one location you should be able to press it off the rest of the way by hand remember you'll have to do this to the other side of the tire as well kneeling next to the tire place your knee on the tire to push the bead down into the center of the rim spray a little Windex on to lubricate the bead put your room protectors in place and then work your tire irons in most tires can be tackled with just two spoons but a really stiff tire might require a third iron and I guess they fire out work away around the tire prying it off a little bit at a time and once it's about that far you should just be able to pull the rest away by hand there we go now we have to work the opposite bead over the same side of the rim once again unless you want to scratch the crap out of your wheels put your rim protectors in place then work your iron under the bead and pry it over what you can do here is you can add the kneel on it to try and work it over but there we go and bam ready to go in the river just kidding you should definitely recycle your tires most auto parts shop will do that for about 2 to 3 bucks a tire now it's time to install the new tire as was the case with the old tire it'll be a lot easier to work with if it's warm you can leave it in the Sun for 10 or 20 minutes but I like to set it out at the beginning of the procedure so it's ready to go as soon as I get the old tire off or if it's winter or just plain cold out you can put a hairdryer and low and set it inside the tire until it's warm so you've got your new tire all warmed up and ready to go and you will notice that there is a dot on it that indicates the lightest part of the tire which you're going to want to align with the valve stem on your rim you'll also notice that there's an arrow on the sidewall that indicates direction of rotation make sure that matches your wheel as well so once you've got that figured out get your wheel preps wheel is going to be spinning clockwise we've got the arrow spinning counterclockwise so I'm going to put this side of it down all right you want to lubricate your bead to get it ready for installation and use a rag to make sure that you don't squirt too much liquid inside the tire with your bead lubricated and your dot aligned with the valve stem you can pop a tire on oftentimes easier said than done there we go all right so now we've got one bead over we need to get the other bead over pretty much the same procedure we're going to spray some Windex on the bead to lubricate it up and we're going to slip our rim shields into place to help protect the finish on our rims and just as when we were taking the tire off the rim I'm going to use my knee to push the bead down into the center channel of the rim so that bead has a little bit of slack on it so that I can work it over so this is the trickiest part of the procedure because as you're trying to lever the bead over one side of the rim it's going to try and pop up on the other side so what I do is I just use my knees and I'll walk them along the sides to keep that bead pinned down in the channel all right just do it a little bit at a time walk your knees up slide your rim shield over a little more take another little bite walk your knees up slide your rim shield over a little more getting pretty close got the rim shield pinched between the tire and the rim resist the urge to take really big bites because it's going to be really hard to do just take little bites and make sure that you keep that other iron pin down because it might flip out and try and smack you in the face all right now I'm going to very gingerly without the rim shield in place trying to work the tire on the rest of the way and this one's especially difficult because this is an OE tire that we're installing which is really thick and really stiff there we go all right we got the tire on the rim now we need to seat the beads on the rim to do that you need to reinstall your valve core with your valve core tool and then inflate the tire ok the Windex has evaporated off the bead so I'm going to spray a little more on there just to help that bead slide up on the rim and fair warning here when the bead goes home when it pops up on the shoulder it pretty much sounds like gunshots and there's going to be two of them no matter how many times I do this it's still surprises and scares me so just be prepared there it is all right that is maybe 15 or 20 psi you really shouldn't have to put that much air in the tire to seat the beads if you're having trouble getting the bead up on the rim resist the urge to over inflate it you really don't want to go past 40 to 45 psi and if it's especially stubborn just take a step back pop the rim off or pop the bead off again real Oubre kit with Windex and give another shot okay so this tire is mounted but it has yet to be balanced so we're going to get up on the bench and do that on the stand all right now it's time to balance our new tire and know you don't need any fancy equipment in this case I'm using an Access balanced and 4motion Pro so make sure that you've got your old wheel weights removed from the rim then install your wheel on the balance stand now give the wheel a gentle spin not too hard you're going to be waiting for a while what we're looking for here is for the heavy part of the wheel to settle out to the six o'clock position at the bottom if you see it swinging back and forth like a pendulum it's okay to cheat and touch the wheel to slow it down a little bit once the wheel has settled out mark the 12 o'clock position with some chalk or a piece of tape this is the lightest part of the wheel where we're going to add weight in order to balance the wheel out I'm using adhesive weights and I'm going to start with four of them just peeling the sticker back a little bit and sticking it to the rim once you've got your weight on there turn it so the weight is at the three or the nine o'clock position and see which way it spins if the weight starts to rise that means you need to add more weight if the weight starts to sink that means you put too much on right now I've got four weights on that's 20 grams and the weight is rising so I'm going to add one more weight for a total of 25 grams once again we're putting it to the nine o'clock position and observing what it does so right now the wheel is ever so slightly dropping down that means I've put too much weight on personally I like to err on the side of too little weight if it's going to be imbalanced with 25 grams and it's also going to be slightly imbalanced with 20 grams I would rather put less weight on the wheel so we've decided on four weights now we need to clean the rim so they stick well and it's always a good idea to put some duct tape or gaff tape over the weights so they don't fly off place the weights as close to the Sun of the rim as you can and that's it this wheel is now balanced and ready to be reinstalled this might seem like a lot of work but give it a little practice you can bust a tire in under 20 minutes and all told we're looking at about $200 worth of equipment most shops charge between 15 and 50 dollars prices vary to mount and balance a single tire so you do the math that's it for this video from the MC garage check back next time for more tips and how to's

Channel: Motorcyclist Magazine

Views: 3,142,828

Rating: 4.8251715 out of 5

Keywords: mc garage, tech tips, Motorcycle (Automotive Class), motorcycles, how-to, how to change tires, tools, motion pro, tires, flat tires, Tire (Industry), Motorcycle Tyre, motorcyclist magazine, Do It Yourself (Hobby)

Id: dAKIuSjPXxA

Length: 10min 24sec (624 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 13 2015