DIY tyre changes??

[750Y]

Just wondering if anyone here uses tyre levers to fit their own tyres.
I have been getting tyres from WMCC and notice that it’s expensive & inconvenient to take my bike somewhere or pull the wheels off & drop them off. What’s your experience? Is it hard? Can anyone do it? What about balancing? what about damage to rims etc? I figure if I got the tools I’d save money in the long run as I’m onto my 8th tyre in under a year…

[Hitcher]

Depends on your choice of ride too. Having had a look at how the rear wheel is fitted to an ST, I'm more than happy to leave tyre changing in the hands of the professionals!

[Sniper]

Yep, I would rather have it done by the pro's. Reason being is you only have 2 wheels and if something goes wrong you have someone else to blame

[Fryin Finn]

Back in my youth I used to do all the tyre changes myself. My very first tyre change took 4 hours. With the advent of radial tyres I have let the bike shops do the tyre changes. When I returned to Dirt biking I tried changing tyres myself. But because of forgotten techniques I kept pinching tubes. Lately I have been getting better at it and the last tyre change went without hassle. Only took an hour including wheel removal and fitting.

[White trash]

Mate, it's a piece of piss.

The hardest bit is breaking the bead. You'll need some good strong levers, get 'em from TWL, not Repco and some rags between the bead and rim will protect them from damage.

A rubber mallet to get the last little bit of tyre back on and you're laughing. DO NOT hit the brake rotors in your enthusiasm to install the new tyre however.

You can staticly balance the wheels easy enough too.

[Motu]

I've always done my own - you need a variety of levers,long and short,and you get kinda attached to them.I have a longish one to get the first part of the bead over,then use 3 short spoon levers for the rest.I have my own tyre machine with MC adapters now - aaah,bliss....

[Milky]

I did both on the zxr two nights ago - the easiest tyres i have ever changed. Used the bench vice to break the bead then tyre levers from there. Get some decent tyre lube/wax and it makes a world of difference.
Experience in years of helping dad change tyres is that it is pretty easy, once you use the right technique. Damage to rims is minimal, if you use rags/get things right the first time, rather than fishing around with the levers and not getting them over the rim properly, which leads to chipped paint here and there.
Balancing I havent done, but have i asume a stand/axle to hold the wheel and some weights to glue? onto the rim will be all you need.
Most shops advertise free fitting and wont give you much of a discount if you dont fit there. If you dont buy from a local tyre shop I would suggest doing it yourself.

[erik]

I changed my tyres for the first time not long ago. There's a thread with a bit of info on it here:
http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=6266

and I also found an article on it here:
http://www.clarity.net/~adam/tire-changing.html


In that article they recommended using cut up bits of old shampoo containers for rim protectors, but they were a pain in the arse to keep in place. Maybe rags as other people here have suggested would work better.
I got three tyre levers from Red Baron, they were about $15 for the small ones and $18 for the large one (I got two small and one large). I checked at repco and their price for a single lever was more than the three levers from Red Baron combined, plus they had to order it in. I dunno about TWL though. Mt Eden Motorcycles also had a relatively cheap tyre lever set.

I found it pretty hard to change the tyres, but I guess it just all comes down to practice and technique. I used detergent and water as a tyre lube, it worked ok, but I'm guessing a proper tyre lube would be better. I'll have to figure out where to get one from next time. I ended up putting a few scratches on the rims too, but I was trying to use bits of plastic as rim protectors, maybe with rags it wouldn't have happened.
I think you pretty much need access to an air compressor to seat the beads. I tried using the tyre inflator at a gas station, and I think it didn't have the capacity to deliver a high enough volume of air to pop the beads in place.

For balancing, I just statically balanced them as suggested in that article link. I just used a couple of chairs to support the axle and then wriggled the axle back and forth to overcome bearing friction. You can get stick on wheel balancing weights from repco that come in strips with a double sided tape backing, a pack of maybe 10 or 20 strips cost me about $11, so I'm guessing it'll be enough to last a lifetime almost. The strips have divisions of either 15g or 7g so that you can cut them off to the amount you need. I suggest getting the 7g strips. I got the 15g ones and have had to cut the weights in half as 15g was too much weight. The 7g strips are slightly thinner and narrower so would have been a better choice.

I kinda think that changing your own tyres just to save a few bucks (depends how much, if any, of a discount tyre shops/bike shops are willing to give you) probably isn't really worth the trouble of changing the tyres yourself.
But if you get satisfaction from learning how to do stuff yourself, then go for it (just be careful not to scratch the rims... ).

[Hoon]

Yeah I've been thinking about how hard it would be to do this too from a racing perspective. With my RGV I was fortunate enough to have 3 sets of rims with slicks/intermediates/wets so on suss weather days I could lax out til the last minute while others furiously levered away.

However with my ZXR I'm not so lucky and the spare rims I've been hunting for haven't materialised. If come winter I still don't have any spare rims I may have to join the party.

So OK, looks like we need:

- good strong levers, get 'em from TWL (one longish and 3 short)
- a rubber mallet
- some decent tyre lube/wax
- rags
- my old BMX bike pump

Anything else?? Also how hard is it to balance and do trackside racers bother with this??

EDIT: Oops Eric beat me to the punch...ignore the static balance Q.

[WINJA]

Just wondering if anyone here uses tyre levers to fit their own tyres.
I have been getting tyres from WMCC and notice that it’s expensive & inconvenient to take my bike somewhere or pull the wheels off & drop them off. What’s your experience? Is it hard? Can anyone do it? What about balancing? what about damage to rims etc? I figure if I got the tools I’d save money in the long run as I’m onto my 8th tyre in under a year…

I DO MY OWN , THERE ARE GOOD LEVERS IN MOTOMAIL.YOU CAN BREAK THE BEAD WITH A DECENT LOADING RAMP .JUST PUT A 4 BY 2 UNDER THE RIM TO STOP THE DISK BENDING PUT THE RAMP ON THE TYRE WHERE THE RIM AND TYRE MEET, JUMP ON THAT FUCKER REAL HARD, FLIP AND REPEAT LEVER OFF TYRE LEVER ON NEW TYRE WITH A BIT OF SUNLIGHT.REMOVE SCRADER TO BEAD UP. USE 10 MM ROD PUT THRU AXLE PUT IN WHEEL BALANCE ON BIKE STAND. AND BOBS YOUR FATHERS BROTHER. YOU MIGHT NOTICE DOING BY HAND DUNLOPS AND BRIDGESTONES CAN BE HARDER TO DO THAN METZLER, PIRELLI AND MICHELIN

[geoffm]

So OK, looks like we need:

- good strong levers, get 'em from TWL (one longish and 3 short)
- a rubber mallet
- some decent tyre lube/wax
- rags
- my old BMX bike pump

Anything else?? Also how hard is it to balance and do trackside racers bother with this??

EDIT: Oops Eric beat me to the punch...ignore the static balance Q.

I made a bead breaker - coopied off one I borrowed. Makes it a lot easier than mucking around with mallets and driving over the rim with a car, etc.
Those with dosh can actually buy them.
Geoff

[White trash]

I kinda think that changing your own tyres just to save a few bucks (depends how much, if any, of a discount tyre shops/bike shops are willing to give you) probably isn't really worth the trouble of changing the tyres yourself.
But if you get satisfaction from learning how to do stuff yourself, then go for it (just be careful not to scratch the rims... ).

We sell tyres at very close to cost price so you can save yourself nearly $100 by doing it yourself.

[erik]

We sell tyres at very close to cost price so you can save yourself nearly $100 by doing it yourself.

When I phoned a few bike shops here in Auckland, I think Motohaus said they wouldn't give any discount, Mt Eden said they'd give about $15 discount, and hmm, I can't remember what Red Baron said. The tyre shop I tried (Rowes tyres) said fitting the tyre was an extra $30 on top of the price they gave, which wasn't all that great

[Motu]

When I started my apprenticeship in 1970 in a local 3 man garge we had no tyre machine and I was taught to do car and truck tyres on the floor with just tyre levers and a hammer.I would break the bead with a lever and hammer,going around until I got it all down....to get a truck tyre off the rim was a two man job - we had another rim and we would lift and drop the rim/tyre onto the other...lift and drop,lift and drop,until the tyre shocked off the rusty rim,long and tyreing work.

The most important thing my boss taught me about doing tyres was - if it's not going easy you are doing something wrong.He used to piss me off by doing ones I had trouble with by hand,without levers! So if you are having to fight things...stop,check that the beads are into well,work slowly and keep an eye on the whole plot - don't fight it!

[750Y]

thanks for the help guys, I think this is something I can do...