I'll be getting a new set of tires soon and I'll need help putting them on my rims.  Anybody have the skills/tools and the desire to help with that?

Tousley Motorsports wants $35/tire plus balancing weights to put new tires on.  Is that the best deal I'm going to find?  If you have the ability to do this I'd be willing to pay.

Yes, that is a decent price.

Simply Sportbikes in Eden Prairie: $25/Tire
They just did mine and treated my rims kindly.  Highly recommended.
Ulf

Just had mine put on at delano for $25 a tire mount and balance. Rims came back without a mark too. No complaints. 

I think 25 bucks a wheel is what Fred charged me last time at Silverback Performance. But that was a while ago.

I'm guessing most of these prices are with wheels off the bike, but maybe not . If you ride  the bike in, there will likely be a charge for removing and replacing the wheels.

I doesn't take much to get set-up to change your own tires but unless you plan on changing several times a season (or have dirt bikes, ice bikes, race)  it doesn't pay and just more junk to kick around. But if you like to wrench here is an excellent link to much info on DIY tire changing.     http://www.clarity.net/~adam/tire-changing-doc.html   

I went with the Harbor Freight set-up. As is typical with HF it's just barely adequate. In retrospect I think I could have built a nicer, more functional one from a junkyard wheel.

I have all the stuff but it's not as efficient as the fancy tire changers the shops use so I'd have to charge MORE than the shops to do it. Plus I don't have enough time to work on my own bikes... I suspect others might feel the same.

Wow, that's a nice write up. Geoff, are you reading this?

I love the 'New Member' title under Ross' screen name.

Cracks me up every time.    



Sorry for the brief threadjack.  Resume the regular programming.   

I charge a threadjacking fee... payable to my paypal account... 

I'm a northeastern metro guy.  Delano/EP, a bit farther than I'd like to drive.  Especially if I gotta come back the next day or so to pick 'em up.  Maybe I'll do a little searching in my area for a better deal.  Thanks.

Silverback racing is close (downtown St Paul), and they're fair with the pricing.  Definitely worth a call.

Otherwise, you could consider the Yamaha dealer in Stillwater or Hitching Post in N. Mpls.  There are lots of options for you. 

I went ahead and went with Tousley just for the convienence sake.  Seems like they did a good job.  Total cost was under $70 including weights and tire recycling fee.

So since this will be my first time putting the wheels back on the bike are there any tricks/tips of the trade?  I got some multi-purpose grease for the axels.  Any need to grease the bearings?  I took the front discs off and noticed that the bolts had thread lock on 'em.  I guess it would be a good idea to put more on when I bolt 'em back up. 

Why did I take em off you ask?  Ha, ha, I couldn't see any other way to get the brakes to clear the disc and the tire rim.  When I was working on getting the 2nd one off somehow it slide off with no effort at all.  Some how I was able to tilt the brake and it came free.  I'm still not sure exactly what I did.  But I also wanted to take the discs off.  My front brakes at the end of last season weren't braking smoothly so I want to check the whole system out.  First: are the discs smooth and straight.

Right now it's a really cool paper weight!  Not that you'd ever use it for that...

QuoteHa, ha, I couldn't see any other way to get the brakes to clear the disc and the tire rim.

Take the calipers off, twist them back and forth on the rotor to push the pistons back in and you will have plenty of room to swing them out of the way. Yes put blue Loctite on the rotor bolts .

Also there is a sequence when you tighten the pinch bolts on the front axle.
1. Put in the axle.
2. Torque the big nut. You might have to snug the pinch bolts opposite the big axle nut lightly just to hold the axle from spinning when you torque the big nut.
3. Torque the pinch bolts on the big nut side in a 1-2-1 pattern. If you don't the first one will loosen when you tighten the second.
4. Loosen the pinch bolts on the other side (if you snugged them), hold front brake and bounce the forks through as much of the stroke as you can a couple times to get the "loose" fork to settle in to proper position so you don't put them in a bind.

Hard to grease the bearings, they're sealed... but spin them with your finger and feel for any hint of roughness. If they're not totally smooth feeling replace them. You can get them at any good bearing shop cheaper than OEM usually. Gopher Bearing in St. Paul is a good one.

Back to the 1st question; I just had 2K motorsports mount some tires for me at a verry resonable price.  They are also the bridgestone rep's for the CRA and put alot into the racing community.  Give them a try sometime they are on Penn and 65th.  I have vowed to never complain again about the cost of mounting tires due to how much a tire machine mount/balancer costs.

thanks for the advice desmo....  It's nice to have a community like this to get answers from.  I got the wheels back on and now I'm just an oil change away from season ready.  Well I also gotta figure out what I did with my license tabs.  I knew I should have slapped it on as soon as it came