I installed new tires on my scoot all by myself today

That will never happen again. I worked my butt off trying to get the tires off the rims and then back on. Got them balanced and back on the bike but definitely got some war wounds on the rims doing the job. I used the rim protectors but with all the pressure you have to use prying the tires on with the tire tools they pop right off. My hats off to all of you who change your own tires. I'll just grin and bear it at the Honda dealer when they over charge me to change them out next time. Old Hickory

I change the tires on my MP3 250 ,It was quite a song and dance . :lol!: With my swing I made a tire changer with a 12" trailer rim after watching a video on u tube ,but never tried it. My tire guy that I went to charge me $10. to remove and instal a new tire ,so for $10. I saved some ware and tare on my my hands and a few hours of cursing .My tire changer is hanging on the wall and no plan's to use it any time soon .

I also made a tire changer and still worked my butt off. For $10.00 don't even take it off the wall. You'll regret it, for sure. OH

ratchet straps .... I have some modified ratchet straps with the hooks removed , its not that hard to put the tire on if you keep it in the center groove , I just keep adding straps to where they push down on the edge of the tire and working the bead around till get to the last few inches , and then I can usually just hit it with my rubber dead blow mallet and it will just pop right on , I hate changing tubeless tires , they can most of the time really be a pain in the @$$...

One thing I noticed on rear especially----age can bring loss of strength----I bought longer tire irons

Cudos to those who work on their scoots. Especially tire changers. Me: not mechanically inclined at all. I just ride em, not fix em.

Homer

Hickory: Did you use Bridgestone Hoops? For some reason nobody knows, Bridgestone seems to think the bead needs to be much, much, much less flexible than IRC, Michelin, Pirelli, etc. I'm thinking the removal method for the Bridgestones must involve explosives.

That said, even with non-Bridgestones, it's not what I would consider a fun job. I don't like forcing things to fit.

There is a video of a guy with a Burgman replacing a tire .He secured the front of the scooter and spun the rear tire till there was 2 halve then removed them separately . A little Smokey but it worked.

I've just ordered a new front (Hoop) & was thinking of doing it myself till I read this, cheers for the heads up! I think I'll shop around for someone who will change it for me even if I have to take the wheel in only!
Cost at the dealer was £104 fitted, I bought my new tyre for £ 53 so there's allot to play with for fitting but I don't think it will be £ 51?!!

£104 fitted for one tyre!!! A little bit more and you could get both fitted...

Bought my own tyres and had them fitted for £10 each, fitted the wheels myself.

tinman wrote:

There is a video of a guy with a Burgman replacing a tire .He secured the front of the scooter and spun the rear tire till there was 2 halve then removed them separately . A little Smokey but it worked.

you can also just break the beads loose then cut the side walls with a box cutter , that's my method of easy tire removal , works great , you can remove the side walls with just your hand no tire iron needed ...

You can always get a bigger hammer. :lol!:

tinman wrote:

You can always get a bigger hammer. :lol!:

hey , hey now , my Dad said there wasn't anything i couldn't fix with a hacksaw and a hammer ..lol the pun of the joke is that back in my youth when i borrowed tools from him it was always the hacksaw and the hammer .

JMASLAK asked "did you used Bridgestone Hoops?"
I removed hoops and installed Diablos. I hate to admit it, but after several attempts to remove the back tire from the rim, I pulled out my Dremel tool and sliced thru the bead on the tire to relieve it a bit to get it the hell off. If I had fire alarms in my garage, they would have woke up the whole neighborhood with all the stinking rubber smoke. It was no easy task cutting thru the Hoop. Lots of steel built into the tire bead. Later, Old Hickory

I brook the tire bead of the rim by placing the tire in my 6" work bench vice.It took me a few hour and bruise knuckles to do the job.Later I found out that a local tire shop would remove and install the tire for $ 10. I never change a tire since.It take's him less the 5 minutes to do.

tinman wrote:

I brook the tire bead of the rim by placing the tire in my 6" work bench vice.It took me a few hour and bruise knuckles to do the job.Later I found out that a local tire shop would remove and install the tire for $ 10. I never change a tire since.It take's him less the 5 minutes to do.

Same opinion here, Tinman.

Removing the wheel yourself saves a lot of money.
But change the tire?
With the risk to damage the rim?
And than what for a 2001 SW?
No, thank you.


Eddy

I took off the wheels and then let my friendly mechanic use his tyre machine to do the real work, much easier and less risk of damage to the rim. My ageing hands are likely to be no good for wrestling with tyre levers in any case !

O great Im doing mine both at the weekend I usually do all my own but there normally 17, 18 or 21 inch never tried a scoot size one you guys need to wish me luch lol

I wish you lots of luck ..lol

I bought my Swing last fall with 16,000 miles on it. It needed tires and the 15k service. I expected the belt change would be the most difficult. It turns out that changing the tires was the most difficult.

I purchased Michelin Feelfree tires.

I made a tire bead breaker out of some dimensional lumber. Once the bead was broken, I chased the wheel / tire all over the garage floor trying to remove the tire. I realized that I needed something to hold the wheel in place while I worked on it.

I cut a 1/4" deep notch across the center of a 2 foot long piece of 2" x 4" lumber. I placed a 12" long 1/2" drive socket extension in the notch and clamped the lumber and the socket extension in my bench vise. I set the wheel / tire over the extension. It secured the wheel well enough to work on it. There was about 4" of extension sticking up from the rim. I was able to use the extension that was sticking up through the center hole in the rim as a pivot point for the tire irons. After soaping up the tire bead, and with a little bit of wrestling, the old tires came off. I think that the more practice that you get with this, the better you would get.

I soaped up the bead of the new tires and they went on without too much of a struggle but I did manage to put a couple of scratches in the rims. I am not sure that you can avoid scratches when changing the tires manually.

I bought a Harbor Freight wheel balancer and discovered that it doesn't work for the rear tire due to the large center hole and short length of the spline in the wheel hub. I used a lawnmower blade balancer that I had on hand to balance the rear tire. It worked pretty well.

Hindsight being 20/20, I am not sure that I would change the scooter tires myself again if I could find a place that did it for a reasonable price.

The tire guys around here charge $35 per wheel to install a tire if it is off the bike so I thought I would save some $ and do it myself. I do everything under the sun myself but I won't be mounting any tires on a SW ever again. Because of their small size and stiffness. It took 3 tire irons and 3 guys 3 hours to do it without a machine.

If you do try it ,make sure the tire is very warm they are too stiff when cold. I even thought about putting it in the oven on a very low setting for a few minutes but I was too worried about ruining the tire. Besides my wife is already mad about how dirty I get the kitchen sink. I can't imagine what she would do if I had a tire in the oven.

Did mine last week no problems at all was dreading doing them after reading this thread but they were easier than the bigger ones ive done in the passed

rjdoles wrote:

Edit---I bought a Harbor Freight wheel balancer and discovered that it doesn't work for the rear tire due to the large center hole and short length of the spline in the wheel hub. I used a lawnmower blade balancer that I had on hand to balance the rear tire. It worked pretty well.---Edit

I have a Harbor Freight wheel balancer and it must have came with larger tapered anvils than what you received. I have no problem balancing front or rear. That really doesn't surprise me considering where they are made. I guess I just got lucky.

I finally got my new front Hoop fitted for £10 inc balancing which took up most of the time, so Total £63 (Saving £41 from Dealer). I took the scoot in with the tyre and 1/2 an hour later she's ready to ride away.
I've just ordered a new Michelin Power Pure SC for the rear and will definitely go back for the fitting.
Sub-Total: £38.03
DELIVERY: 1-3 motorbike tyre (no islands!) (Total): £12.64
Tax: £9.81
Total: £50.67
Fair? I think so.

The Michelin Power Pure SC will have to go on as soon as it arrives, just rode back from London 25 M with a flat rear, it didn't feel right as I puled off & kept trying to follow groves (of which I'm afraid there are lots here)
I filled up with air to 40 psi but it was coming out fast round the rim, filtering was scary & slow but I made it, the tire (Hoop) stayed on the rim, guess the inside of the wheel is corroded.
The tire has done around 5 & 1/2K & still has good tread but I guess it's totally screwed now.
Train for now (yuck) till the replacement gets fitted, gona have to remove the wheel myself & take it in, that's not so bad as the scoot is in the Pub car park!!

Use the TRAIN! Thats reason enough to take a half day off to get the tyre replaced

I Installed a new IRC SS530 Rear Tire myself. It wasn't too Difficult. I purchased a Harbor Freight MC Bead Breaker and it worked well. It was pretty easy to break the bead on the Mitchelin City Grip that I had on the rear. I used 3 tire Irons, removing a little of the tire at a time from the rim, I think this is very important, Trying to pry too large an area at a time makes it real hard to do.
I also purchased a Harbor Freight MC Wheel Balancer and it worked well also. I also used stick on wheel weights purchased from Harbor Freight. The Bead Braker and Balancer where on sale, the Bead Braker was $19.99 and the Balancer was $39.99. My Dealer charges $60 on the Bike and $40 off the bike for tire changes. I also purchased Tire Bead lube from Napa Auto Parts, it worked well.
Installing the new tire, the first bead side goes on pretty easy, the second side bead is hardest and is made easier if you use your knees and kneel on each side (After the tire is started on) of the tire and keep working your way up until the bead is over the rim. I used 3 layers of Duct tape on the edge of the rims to avoid scratches, I have rim protectors ordered for next time.
The next tire I change myself will have me well ahead money wise. I'm glad I tried it and was able to do it myself. It took me about 4 hours but I took several breaks and did a lot of cleaning also. I also don't work nearly as fast as when I was a younger Lad! The last tire I had changed at the Dealer I was there 3 1/2 hours!
I hope this helps anyone who is considering changing their own tires.
P.S.
I also had purchased a tire changing video DVD some time ago from Cyclepump and it was a very good video showing the removal and replacement of a MC Tire.

   RichG   

Sounds like you do it very similar to how I do it. Congrats!

Well done! BUT you live in Florida; how on earth are you going to help me with mine???

 

GHM-PM wrote:

Well done! BUT you live in Florida; how on earth are you going to help me with mine???

 

ROAD TRIP???

GHM-PM wrote:

Well done! BUT you live in Florida; how on earth are you going to help me with mine???

 

Moral Support !

I just had front and rear tires replaced with Michelin power pure tires. I removed both wheels myself and brought them and the new tires to the local bike shop for the install. I thought i got ripped off when he charged me $66 total to do both, but after reading this post i guess its not too bad! The shop guy said they balanced the new tires, around $9 for the weights, but when i was reinstalling on the bike i could see the original wheel weights were not moved or altered!!! So i guess i was ripped a bit. Nice peace of mind now tho knowing the chances are slim of blowing a tire. My front tire was OEM hoop with 21100klm on it, the rear tire was replaced in 09 by the previous owner. SWing is an 05.

This has been a most informative and entertaining thread. The images of chasing the wheels around trying to get the tires off the rims, and maybe warming the new ones in the oven have to be the funniest on the site. I think this has saved me time and inventing more new swear words when my tire change time arrives. I might look to a shop with experience. I recall changing boat trailer tires and chasing them around too. I built a 20 ton straddle carrier for a local marina years ago, and took tires and rims purchased from Princess Auto to a major tire shop for mounting. After a few attempts and I'm sure much swearing at me and the tires (old airplane tires - Viscount main gear) they told me not to come back once they had them installed!!
Mike

Okiedolkle wrote:

Cudos to those who work on their scoots. Especially tire changers.  Me: not mechanically inclined at all.  I just ride em, not fix em.  

Homer
   

I was born with two left thumbs. I agree totally.

LDB wrote:

Okiedolkle wrote:

Cudos to those who work on their scoots. Especially tire changers.  Me: not mechanically inclined at all.  I just ride em, not fix em.  

Homer
   

I was born with two left thumbs. I agree totally.

Agree also. My Honda dealer charges me $35.00 to remove wheel and replace/balance. If I buy tire from them and they give me comparable prices so can't argue. Saving 35 bucks to remove rear wheel and change out tire? I don't think SO... LOL

I have never replaced my own tires and I can never see me doing it. I will pay the money the shop wants because I just don't have the will to do this. I respect those that can and will do it but I would rather just drop it off and let them do the hard work. I did other things on the SWing but changing the tires was not one of them. I also would have had the shop adjust the valves but after 34,000 miles it didn't seem the SWing needed them adjusted.

The tires on my Model T and Model A will not fit on tire machines so they have to be changed by hand. I have put tires on them but when it comes to my bike tires I know two people with professional-grade tire changers so I just take the wheels off and use their tire changers. It just doesn't make sense to fight with tire irons when I have access to a tire changer.

When John Grinsel said " A real man does not change their own tires"...I decided to have the shops do it.

I will follow the thread. No I do not plan to "save" money by changing tires.