Tire Change

[FJR Flyer]

Well I just did my first tire change on the FJR, well really on any bike I've owned. My buddy with a Beemer has been telling me how easy it is to do for a while, so he finally offered to come by to show me. Took about 15 minutes using a bead breaker and three or four tire irons. Amazingly easy. Also changed out the rear tire on my FJ and pulled a tire off of a YZF rim I have. Total time less than an hour for everything.

He said he's tried the Harbor Freight gear and he can do it faster with the spoons and the breaker. I think I'm now a convert and will be doing my own tire changes from now on. My local independent shop moved about 2 hrs away and I don't trust the dealer nor do I want to pay them double what the local guy was getting.

We did a rough static balance using the axle and it was pretty close. I will pick up some weights in the future. Funny, the Avon Storm didn't have any yellow dot to align with the valve stem for aiding in balancing.

 

[timk]

I've been spooning them off/on for 43yrs. Fairly easy. Can't imagine paying someone to do it. There's videos on line on how to. There was a recent video of mounting a tire with NO tools. It requirers 4-5 straps to keep the beads together. The guy just slammed both beads on at the same time.(there;s a utube on that also). Gonna give it a try next change.

 

[Fred W]

+1

I'm a spooner (I only use two!) and use a home-made bead breaker which amounts to two pieces of 2x3 lumber bolted together. The one thing you will want to purchase (or make) eventually is a balance rig like the Mark Parnes balancers or the similar one I bought off eBay. The only tricky part would be making the two cones that hold the wheel perfectly centered in the bearings. You could just use the axle and suspend that in some skateboard wheel bearings. You just want it to be very free to rotate.

 

[big ears]

harbor freight has a balancing system now for about 50 bucks I think.

 

[FJR Flyer]

+1
I'm a spooner (I only use two!) and use a home-made bead breaker which amounts to two pieces of 2x3 lumber bolted together. The one thing you will want to purchase (or make) eventually is a balance rig like the Mark Parnes balancers or the similar one I bought off eBay. The only tricky part would be making the two cones that hold the wheel perfectly centered in the bearings. You could just use the axle and suspend that in some skateboard wheel bearings. You just want it to be very free to rotate.

He had a bead breaker that was like a wide plastic chisel. Worked well with a decent size hammer. For balancing, I put the axle on a set of jack stands and let it rotate on the wheel bearings. Need to find some wheel weights for future changes.