I Change my First Motorcycle Tire

Today the tire irons from Adventure Motostuff, they had been due this Monday but UPS managed to lose the contents of the first shipment and the motostuff people had to re-ship me another set.

The black curved one is well worth the $15 I paid for it

I was now officially out of excuses for trying out my first tire swap on a motorcycle. As I'd mentioned before, the thread depth on the Metzeler ME77s that came with Brigitta on the front had been approaching the TWI or Tire Wear Indicator so it was time to get new rubber on her front wheel. Not to mention I did not like the way the tire performed on grooved pavement.

I referenced several DIY sites on the Net, using bits and pieces out of each one to prepare and actually do the tire swap, they're worth reading thoroughly: LINK1, LINK2, LINK3 and LINK4. Thanks to these guys' efforts, the job was accomplished with not much cursing and no injuries!

Here's Brigitta with a floor jack supporting her oil pan as instructed in the manual for when I removed her front tire. This is important as you don't want the front forks to come crashing down once you've removed the wheel. Right?


I started getting things ready when I got home and was removing the front tire by 1430hrs. I followed the directions on the Clymer Manual to the letter and the tire came off pretty easy. Because the previous owner had put 100/90 size tires on her, I had to also remove the left brake caliper in order to slide the tire out once I removed the axle. No big deal.

Next I broke the bead on the tire using the method I found at webbikeworld: LINK

Here's my $4 tire bead breaker setup:

The bottom 2x4s prevent damage to the brake rotors!

Breaking the bead, once I figured out the right angles on the pieces of wood turned out to be a snap. Note to self, next time, remove the tire valve core BEFORE trying to compress the tire down, works much better to let ALL the air out!

The bead broken I then spent the next 30-40 minutes with my loving wife lending a hand as I used tire irons for the first time in my life. I used a cut-up plastic bottle of motor oil as the source of plastic strips to protect the rim's finish by the way. A small bit of cursing, some trial and error, a couple of breaks and some thinking later, we had the wheel out of the tire! Yes! I did however forget to take a picture, sorry. AND, I managed to not damage the brake rotors!

Next, make damn sure you followed the instructions in the links above and marked the direction of rotation somewhere on your wheel! Then, match it with the rotation arrow on your tire! It would really suck if you went through the motions of putting on the new tire only to find you put it with the thread pattern on backwards! I triple-checked this step.

I used a marker to put a small arrow on each side of the wheel

Next, I worked the new Metzeler ME880 100/90 tire onto the wheel, had to use a little bit of soapy water but finally did get the lower bead onto the wheel. After lining up the red dot the maker put on the tire indicating lightest point of the tire with the valve stem, next came some more mild cursing, a big helping hand from my loving wife (thanks Dear!), some careful use of the tire irons and voila, got the upper bead to be inside the rim as well....ready for inflation.

Almost that is. Now came the point where I had to use the dispenser that came with the dynabeads I'd bought on Monday from the local dealer. 2 ounces is what I was told to use and 2 ounces is what I put in. Others in the online forums I frequent had raved about this balancing method, the local motorcycle rental outfit uses them so I figured why not? It beat paying some bucks for a tire balancing setup. Here's a link to dynabeads for more information: LINK.

The insertion of the beads took some time, 20-30 minutes perhaps as the feed of the ceramic beads via the valve stem takes time, patience and a lot of tapping against the side of the tube.



Finally, all 2 ounces was inside the tire, I dropped one or three beads but I don't think that'll matter. I put the valve stem back on and hooked up the air compressor to the valve stem.

I set the compressor at 40 PSI and slowly inflated the tire, soon I heard some small pops, three in all I think and the bead seated on both sides, neat as you please! Take cautions when doing this, don't be bending over the tire, or have fingers anywhere near the rim and such! This Metzeler came with a line indicator all around the tire and all I had to do is make sure it was even with the rims. Easy. I even bounced the tires a bit while rotating it to ensure the beads were seated.

Here's the new tire, inflated and ready for installation back onto the front forks.


As I went to install the wheel back onto the front forks, I found I had to now also remove the right-side brake caliper to ease the tire easily into its place. I put a bit of axle grease onto the axle and it slid it in with just a bit of effort. I made sure to replace the spacers, got every bolt tightened to specified torque values per the manual using my torque wrenches and I was done! Wow. 2.5 hrs overall, not too bad.

Yeah, sure I could have taken it to the shop, they'd have done it in 30 minutes and charged me only $60 but now I know I can do it if I have to on the side of the road, I can save myself the $60 each time I need a tire change and it's one more step towards wrenching experience. Not to mention, I do it at my convenience, not at the convenience of the shop's schedule.

After dinner, I went out for a test ride and the tire was perfect! I went through some grooved pavement (not the really bad stuff, did not have the time to go to the nearest section of road that was being prepped for new asphalt) and the tire was much better! Sure, I could still feel the grooves but the front wheel did not want to wander anymore!

Only did about eight miles but the tire felt fine. I didn't go above 55mph during the ride but I'll do that tomorrow to ensure the dynabeads are doing their job of balancing my tire.

A final shot of the new rubber on the front of Brigitta, no injuries to me, the tire performed fine during the test ride, it's all good!

Tried for six passes, got five

Temperatures from high 70s to low 90s. Sunny and warm mostly with cool breezes helping keep the heat down.

Today I decided to take Maria for a long ride to make up for time lost since the accident and to get me going again on long distance riding. I made a list of six Colorado Passes that I'd not recorded riding on for the Colorado Beemers Club's Passbagger 50 effort I hope to finish sometime this decade.

I left shortly after 0900hrs and my route took me the I-25 slab to Colorado Springs where I picked up CO115 to US50 towards Canon City.

An eye-catching display enroute to Canon City at a Vietnam Vet Memorial Park

The traffic was light and I was able to make good time, the curves on US50 once you're past Canon City were quite enjoyable and I was in Salida and tanking up by 1230hrs.

The first Pass was Twelve Mile Pass, it's just off US50 where it intersects with CO67. There's no sign and had I not had the GPS coordinates, I would have ridden over it without even knowing it! Oh well, I did a screen capture of the GPS in hopes it'll be enough to qualify.

The next pass was Poncha pass, I passed Monarch Pass on US50 enroute but did not stop since I knew I'd be back that way. Poncha pass was apparently 1 mile down a narrow dirt trail, I started down it thinking it should not be too bad. I was though, not willing to do a water crossing to get to it! Yep, it was about 30 feet of water cutting across the trail and I didn't even try and find out how deep. No way. Got myself turned around with some difficulty and headed on back towards Monarch Pass.

On the way up to Monarch Pass from Poncha Pass' vicinity

I took a small lunch break at Monarch Pass to drink some water and eat some trail mix I found in my side case. It had apparently been there a while since it as all melted together! Yummy.

I headed back East on US50 and then turned Northward on US285 heading towards US24. I blew past Trout Creek Pass before I knew it since the GPS was not letting me use it as a destination. There was no sign, just the remnants of the wooden structure it had been attached to before. Traffic was heavy enough that I could not stop safely so I kept going.

It was around 1430 or so that I made it to Wilkerson Pass on US24. It was quite hot and I hoped to get cold water at the visitor center. No luck, out of service and the bathrooms did not have sinks. Weird.


I finally stopped a short time later at a convenience store west of Florissant I think. I had the beginnings of a headache and felt hot so I knew it was time to get more water.

Turns out this store did not have public toilets. So I had the inspiration to buy a gallon of drinking water for $1.29, then used the open lid of my left side system case to hold water and soak my cooling vest in it! Worked great! Now with water in me and on me via the vest, I set out again on US24.

Ute Pass, the last one of the list, was located somewhere at the rather busy intersection of US24 and CO67 in the town of Divide. Again, I elected not to stop since there was no sign showing the pass and there was heavy traffic.

I stayed on US24 eastbound and with some slight meaderings through Colorado Springs neighborhoods, managed to find US 24 again and took it heading eastbound instead of turning north at I-25 and taking the slab home.

After a bit, I found the road to Elbert and from there it was county roads, which I had mostly to myself. Very nice riding conditions throughout the day I must say. I went through the small towns of Elbert, Kiowa, Elizabeth and soon I was home.

I spent almost nine hours in the saddle today, about 438 miles racked up and documentation for three passes in the bag, not too shabby. Maria did great, though she did feel quite heavy and bulky when turning around on dirt/gravel roads. Hmmm.

She did however get great gas mileage, 43 on the first tank (this is the tank that I used during the recent TBS) and 56 on the second!

TBS Envy

I went and got a new front tire for Brigitta since the one she came with was nearing it's TWI or Tire Wear Indicator; not to mention the thread pattern on Metzeler ME77 tires are unstable on grooved surfaces as I've mentioned before.

I got Metzeler ME880s, 110/90 18 tires, same pattern as the ones on Maria and I know that grooved surfaces don't matter to their thread pattern! Now to wait for the arrival of the tire irons I ordered online and some dynabeads and I'll be putting the new tire on Brigitta.

So, you'd think that having seen the new tire, Brigitta would be happy with things. Apparently not, I took her for a ride to the dealer to get some oil for topping off the bikes. On the way back she suddenly died on me, once while slowing down to a stoplight and the second time while stopped at another light. Not good.

She also seemed to run rough/surge while accelerating on an uphill while nearing home. However, this was a symptom I could diagnose with some certainty. The carburetors might be out of sync! I guess she'd seen me give Maria a TBS or Throttle Body Sync and wanted a sync of her carburetors so she wouldn't be left out! ; )

It took me much longer to do a sync of her carburetors than it did for me to do the TBS for Maria, let me tell you! There's three adjustment points per carburetor vice two per throttle body for Maria and of course changes to one caused adjustments to be required on the others.

Finally figured it out to the point where while the manometer oil levels did not exactly match at idle, they were within an inch of each other. The important part being that the levels remain steady and close ot each other under acceleration! The levels would separate a bit at the 2000-2500 rpm range then merge back closer as I approached 4000rpm then hold steady. The engine sounded smoother too since I ensured I had a good idle setting of 1000 rpm.

I got her buttoned up, which involves just putting the vacuum fittings cap screws back on. Simple. No fairings to mess with. I kind of like that.

Went for a test ride involving all the hills I could find nearby, she ran way smoother and I think only surged once in 2nd gear at around 5500 rpm which I'd normally not run at so it was all good.

So, now that I've given her the same TLC as Maria since they've been together, hopefully she'll stay smooth running. : )

14jul08 update: I had the engine quit at a stoplight again today, have raised the idle to about 1150-1200 to see if it helps.

Maria gets a TBS and some before/after pictures

Yesterday, after bringing Maria home I had noticed some "surging" or uneven acceleration behavior between 2500-3500 rpms, mainly in 2nd and 3rd gears. A bit annoying in that it threw off my shifting off sometimes and caused the motorcycle to lurch forward slightly. More annoying that the mechanic at the dealer who did the test ride did not mention it or better yet, fix it before turning Maria over back to me. Oh well, what are you going to do. The test ride probably was not long enough perhaps for him to notice.....I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

So today after having commuted to work on Maria, got home and took her fairings off and set her up for a throttle body synchronization (TBS) which I suspected was needed.

I noted the mechanic had used torx head screws for 6 of the screws holding the fairings on, I replaced those with hex head screws so I wouldn't have to swap tools to take fairings off in the future.

Wow, the throttle bodies were way, way, way out of sync! There was 16 inches difference in the ruler I use for my manometer. No wonder she was surging! Less than 15 minutes later, I had the idle at the correct 1100 rpm, got the levels within one inch of each other at idle and even closer under acceleration and very much steady! She sounded much smoother too.

I went on a test ride without the fairings and she was smooth as butter! I was a happy camper once again. I'd toyed with the idea of checking the valve lash as well but that would have been only if the TBS didn't do the trick of removing the surging. I would have to wait till the engine was stone cold too before I could do the valve lash checks.

Here's some pictures of the items that were replaced and such on Maria before I put the fairings back on.

Before: note the mirror housing mounting studs, worn down to nubs by the pavement

After: The new mirror housing mounting studs

Before: The damaged valve cover, the spark plug cable was torn off during the crash

After: The new sparkplug cable and valve cover guard

Note the newness of the valve cover's metal vice the jug's metal's color

Tomorrow its back to Brigitta for the daily commute to work, I felt the effect of Maria's fairings on blocking what wind there was on the commute home. I got quite warm. Maria will be my weekend long riding partner, Brigitta my commuter motorcycle. This way, they'll both get their riding time in and part of my attentions on a regular basis. : )