Ok, so Jay and I finally did our tire change yesterday...and all in all it went pretty smooth! We took our time, and took long pauses to drink when we'd get stuck on something. So, I've deleted the other 'changing tires' thread, to replace it with this one. We will compile and write up the entire procedure, and next time I'll even remember to take pics of ALL the steps, rather than just 2 or 3. So, all that info will be posted here shortly...

[Chuck]

The removal part of the instructions should be pretty easy.

Step 1: Do a JC/Stoner burnout either on or off the board until you hear a pop. Keep it smokin' till the rubber shreds off the wheel. [Note: Probably best if done on the board since the street would grind up the rim pretty badly.] hehe

[cRa1g]

JC,

This is GREAT news. I'll be looking forward to the process being posted. I had to get the Pilot Sports mounted after the last trip up to Jay's (I was showing cords when I got home).

Next time, I will use this process, and save a few bucks. Thanks again for posting the info.

Ok...here's the rough rundown of what we did.

Tools/accessories needed:

1. plastic rim savers...they clip onto the rim to protect it from the tire irons. We had 8 of them, and that proved to work out very well (I think we used 7 of them at a time for some parts of this). I got them at http://www.streetandcomp.com , part

2. bead breaker of some sort. I bought the one Paul G. uses from JCWhitney, and it worked quite well once we got the hang of it. Sku
3. 3 or 4 tire irons...the curved MotionPro ones worked great. We had 4, and it was nice to have that 4th on a few occasions (but that was prolly cuz we didn't know what we were doing!) Got these from http://www.streetandcomp.com as well, Part
4. two 2x4's....about 3 feet in length (this is handy if you have the same bead breaker I have....this keeps the rim off the metal frame of the breaker).

5. soapy water/sponge or rag to lube the rim/tire up while taking off/putting on the tire.

6. Either a nearby gas station or a compressor (preferrably a compressor, since it's nice to seat the new bead at home with all your tools n' shit right there).

7. Wheel weights. I also got those at JCWhitney....they're adhesive and break off in 1/4oz. blocks. Sku
8. Two jack stands for balancing the wheel.

So....here are the steps we took, including things we shouldn't have done (I'll clearly mark those!). This is assuming the wheel is already off the bike. Take the cush drive off the wheel...too.

1. let the air out of the tire.

2. Lay the 2x4's down next to the bead breaker...you can see the arrangement in the picture below. Lay the wheel down (either side, you have to do both anyway) on the bead breaker like this:


3. Gently push the edge of the tire down with the bead breaker until you have enough room between the edge of the tire and the rim to slide a rimsaver onto the edge of the rim. Be careful if you get this same bead breaker, if you don't get the rimsavers on the rim before you really push down on it, it will scrape the crap out of the rim! As you can see in the picture above, we did this the entire way around the rim. This may or may not be necessary, but we figured we were better safe than sorry, since we'd be going all the way around with the irons on that side. On the other side you'll only need two savers to protect the rim from the bead breaker. Only push down enough to get the rim saver on, like this:


4. Line the bead breaker up, and carefully push down on the lever, like this:


5. Once the tire pops off the bead lip on the rim, you should be able to push the bead off the lip all the way around the rim using just your hand to push it off. Repeat steps 2 through 5 on the other side of the rim now.

6. Now comes a trickier part...spooning the tire off the rim. Lube up the rim/edge of the tire with the soapy water now. Hook the tire iron under the bead of the tire and carefully lever the edge of the tire up to the edge of the rim. With all those rimsavers on the wheel, you can just about do this anywhere along the rim. Now hook a second iron under the lip 3 or 4 inches to either side of the first iron, and again lever the of the tire up to the edge of the rim. Repeat this as you go around....you should only need to keep an iron at each of the points where the tire goes back onto the rim (I wish I had the pic to better explain that one, but we were drinking throughout this process and I wasn't so great about remembering to take lots of pics ) Once you're half way around or so...you'll just be able to pull the rest of that side off the rim. Basically repeat the same process to get the other side of the tire off the rim.

7. Lube the rim/tire. With the rimsavers still in place...lay the tire on the rim at an angle...so that it's hanging off on one side (preferrably the side closest to you, that seemed to work better). There is a yellow dot on the tire, this signifies the light spot of the tire. This is usually lined up with the valve stem on the rim. We (I) did this completely backwards, but it worked out, as you will see. Push as much of the tire onto the rim as you can with your hands....then begin to lever the tire on with the irons. Once you get most of the tire on, make sure the opposide side of the tire (I should say end, not side...) isn't up at the bead lip. That puts too much tension on the bead to get the last chunk of the tire over the edge of the rim. We couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong, but I noticed the valley on the center of the indside of the wheel, and pushed the opposite side down into it...and that gave the extra room to pop the tire right on (and it would have been really easy if we'd figured that one out sooner). Repeat for the second side of the tire. Once it's all on, take the rimsavers off the rim.

8. Seating the bead. Try to make sure the tire is as well seated as it can be before this step (it won't work if there are gaping spaces between the rim and tire). With a compressor, inflate the tire. At first it may leak...but a few quick shots of the pressure worked great for us....and it began to push the bead up onto the lip. The soapy water helps with this also. Beware, it's a loud bang when each side of the bead seats...and if there's any liquid on the rim/tire it will squirt out with extreme force when this happens. Keep your face/eyes clear when you do this! If the bead won't seat right away (I think 45psi is the max safe pressure for doing this), try bouncing the wheel on a hard surface...I've heard that helps.

9. Balancing. Two jackstands, your axle....some patience. Make sure the stands hold the wheel as straight as possible (don't have one 4 inches higher than the other, obviously). Make sure the tire isn't rubbing on anything, then spin the wheel gently a few times....make note if it seems to stop in the same general spot alot. With Jay's we lucked out, and it didn't have ANY patterns as far as stopping in the same spot (we got lucky, like I said!). So...assuming it stopped in one spot over and over, you'd take one of the weights and stick it at the very top when it stops. Spin the wheel again...and so on, until the wheel doesn't repeatedly stop in one spot. We test rode Jay's bike and neither of us could feel anything wrong with it, so we guess it's balanced! Oh and that TLR is ONE SWEET FUCKIN BIKE!!!! I am SO getting one as my second 2-up bike!

Inflate the tire to the desired pressure...and put the wheel back on the bike, and go test ride it!

I know this is a bit rough...but I'm pretty lit....so I'll come back to this and straighen it up a bit later. And we'll hopefully be doing Jay's front tire soon too, so I'll get the rest of the pictures up here too.

[Edited on 9/6/01 by JC]

[cRa1g]

JC,

EXCELLENT recap.

I've got it printed, and intend to get all of the items to create my tire changing station here at the house. I'll come up when you do Jay's front to see the pro's in action...

[ChR1s]

Nice work, guys. Any chance you could list the part numbers for the bead breaker and weights, for us lazy fuckers?

Thanks Craig. I'll be going through it today to clean it up a bit, so you might want to print it again this afternoon.

Chris, I'll get all the part #'s I can find for this stuff....as well as url's and prices, and list them as well.

[eug]

So, what are you charging if I bring my wheels.

Nice work guys.

Ok, I cleaned up some typos/spelling errors, and added the vendor/part#/price of the tools I bought to do this project. Next change will be within the next two weeks, as I want to put 208's on my black rims for track day. I'll get lots of pics this time!

I just ordered a set of 208's....hopefully they'll arrive before track day (I really should have ordered them earlier in the week, but as expected my head isn't exactly screwed on tight this week). So next week I'll be doing another tire changing extravaganza, at my place this time.

My 208gp's are in! Figures they get delivered while I'm AT the track, rather than the day before, but oh well. So, one of these weekends I'll be doing another tire changing extravaganza, if anyone has some to do as well.

[eug]

I would not mind being a peanut gallery if you need a hand.

Sweet Eug, I'll let you know when I'm going to do it. Probably on Sunday. It should only take an hour or so...since we've already done it once.

I'm hopefully going to do this around noonish today. Eug, gimme a ring if you want to stop by. 978.853.1149

Err...nevermind. I think I'm gonna skip it for today and just put the street shit back on so I can ride it today.

[eug]

S!@t, just got to this message. Not sure how I missed it before. I will be gone this PM - Wed, anytime after that I am a game.

hehe....well I went out and rode it for 20 minutes, the whole time thinking about what it would ride like with the 208's. I quickly headed home and went at it (sorry Eug, I was on a mission!).

So, all I gotta say is DAAYUUMMMM!!! Deeze be da phattest mo'fuckin' tires I've ever had!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely rock solid everywhere. They warmed up quick, the turn in is amazing (steeper profile than the zr's), and they're solid on the highway too. I guess I've found my new street tire, unless I get less than 2k miles out of a set...of course.