theWolfTamer Chronicles: FZ1 Maintenence: Unassisted Tire Change

2 June 2022

When I got home from the last tire change with Cruzman I was determined to be able to change my own tires without imposing on him. I don't think it's a real imposition but it feels like it. That and we ended up using his truck to break the bead and on the ground with tire spoons again. theWolf does not like being on the ground!

Before you go any further, understand I've been writing this post for almost a year. When I got back from last year's rally, I knew I was going to need tires soon. This is going to be a long post about my diy tire changing journey.

Tire Changing Revisited…

In 2020 I bought a new tire changer to replace the HF changer and attachment that I never quite understood. I got rid of it when I found a place to do the changes for a reasonable price without the possibility of abject failure every time I tried to use it. I believed that even with a better demount/mount bar that cost as much as I already had in my setup or more I still wouldn’t get it. I was right.

It took last year’s tire change on the ground with Cruzman to teach me some of the things I didn’t understand back then and point me in a direction to find out what I should have 10 years ago. It’s not the first time that I’ve struggled to understand a thing that even the people who are trying to explain it to you take for granted that you already know. This is one of the things that birthed this blog. To that end, here are some things to know before you try to change your own tires.

I learned that even with the right tools, changing tires can still be difficult. Before I attempted my first tire change alone, I tried to get YouTube certified but there was still something I didn’t grasp and those videos did not explain. I will not give a step by step on how to change tires. I wouldn’t know where to begin because in theory it’s simple:

get the air out of the tire,
break the seal between the wheel and the tire,
remove the tire,
inspect and clean the wheel and it’s ancillaries,
make any necessary repairs,
put the tire on the wheel,
make the seal between the wheel and tire,
inflate to spec,
put wheel back on the bike and ride until time to do it again.

Between the first and last steps is where the difficulty lies. Dumb luck can get the air out of the tire and the bead broken with the tire changer. I never struggled to get the tire off of the wheel with the tire changer either. It’s the getting on that is the true struggle.

With my last change, I learned there are parts of the wheel that fight your

attempts to put the tire on the wheel. I didn’t learn them all though. Looking back, it’s easy for me to understand why I didn’t have trouble taking tires off. Once you get part of the top lip over the edge of the wheel, the part that needs to be in the right place naturally goes there without really having to do anything to make get it there. So much so that I never realized a thing was happening. It’s not the same when it goes back on, you need props and gadgets to get the right part to stay where it needs to be so the tire will go onto the wheel.

Now I understand why I didn’t understand the demount tools. With the HF changer, I used the HF tire spoons and tried a lot of the homemade stuff like cut up bottles for rim savers or furniture polish and soapy water for bead lube but that didn't really work for me. Maybe I was being too cheap but I was doing what I could afford to do which was really not much.

Even before that fateful last tire change, I knew I wanted to get another tire changer and spent a lot of time looking for current options. All the expensive ones from the last time I looked 10ish years ago are still around and still expensive. This time I had a better understanding of what the "cheap" tire changer really costs and not to shock anyone but it ain't cheap. I had to remember I was starting from having no tire change specific tools.

Last time, I fell for the hype. You can still get the HF changer on clearance if you're lucky but you're going to have to mod it so it don't destroy your wheels. It was ultimately one of the reasons that led me to abandon the effort. After you fix it so it doesn't damage your wheels, you gotta do something about the tool that comes with it if you plan to use that to remove and install your tires.

When I did the math back in 2020, it came out that I could get a better changer out of the box for less than the HF after you did all the mods. There was another tire changer that didn't cost and arm or leg but appeared to be a little better quality out of the box. It looked like the Chinese version of the one I saw at Northern Tool back when I got the HF changer. Ten years later, Amazon/eBay have a cheap copy of this tire changer called the Multipurpose Manual Tire changer.

Since it was what I wanted before, I took a chance and ordered the cheapest one on eBay. I got it for $120 (2020) delivered and it sat at my brother's until last year when I got back from the rally and realized I was gonna need it sooner than later. I'm gonna call it the MTC. It's advantages as far as I could tell through the internet was that the workspace wouldn't be so high as the HF, it wouldn't need to be "fixed" so it would work right, and it wouldn't need a replacement mount/demount bar. Sold.

I couldn't find one as of this writing for anywhere near that low a price. Apparently $120 in 2020 money is $185 plus shipping in 2022 money.

This time, I also decided to get better accessories than the home remedies. Along with my value priced tire changer, I now have a wheel balancer, tire spoons with rim savers, bead keepers, and tire lube/paste stuff. The first time the only "official" tire lube stuff I knew about was the expensive no mar tire paste stuff. You get a pint for around $20. I got a 4 gallon thing of euro paste and an brush from Napa for the same price. I figured that if it works for expensive car rims and tires, it'll work for me. (Spoiler: that stuff is DA TRUTH!) The $100 I would have spent on making the so called $70 tire changer useful I spent on better accessories.

The Solo Tire Change

I don't have the best memory (another reason I have this blog), but I can only remember 1 tire change that I did completely alone. And I think I damaged the bead and needed a new tire like a month later. I do remember being satisfied at the time that I could do it once I got a better mounting tool but I never got that tool and decided instead to abandon the HF.

After what seemed like too long after I got all my accessories (except for the euro

My workspace

paste that I got right after the tires), I finally got tires and the time to try to mount them.

I'm replacing the Bridgestone T32 and S22 with Pirelli Angels I got from eBay. I wanted to get the new Stones but my wallet really liked the Pirellis. I've used them before and like them so it wasn't a big compromise.

Even with all the preparations, I still wasn’t ready to use the tire changer when the tires arrived. I hadn’t figured out how I was going secure the thing and I didn’t have a new compressor. Cruzman loaned me his so all I had to do was figure out how to secure the changer. For now, I screwed it to a piece of particle board I found around the house. It’s not ideal but it’ll work for now.

I’ve watched videos with the thing on a pallet but that looked worse than using it without it attatched to anything. One guy had it spinning around as he tried to get the tire on the wheel. I think the board is better because I can stand on it as I work. (I had mine doing wheelies which is more appropriate for a motorcyclist!)

Had the tires delivered to work

I’ll admit this was an exercise in determination and stubbornness. I’ve spent two years getting the stuff I needed to do this change and I believed I could do it alone. I was determined to do it alone.

With the MTC more or less secured, it was time to use my new knowledge to put my tires on. Baby had been sitting since October for want of new shoes but he fought me anyway when taking the rear tire off. I started with the rear for two reasons. First, the bike was already on the rear stand. Second, it was the hardest one to put on.

MTC "Secured" to a board

Rim in the "jaws" that come with plastic protectors

I didn't eat enough before I tried this after work. Breaking the bead with this tire changer is just like with the HF changer. The biggest difference was securing the rim in the changer. It could be because I've been playing with the changer for about a year with no rim in it but I was able to get the rim secure with ease, it was a little off centered but it wasn't moving.

For the life of me, I couldn't get the bead over the edge of the rim. The sun was pretty low by the time I gave up and decided to eat the rest of my food. I also didn't make sure the rim was centered. If you watch videos, some will say it won't be centered but that's not true, at least not with my 17" rim.

After giving some thought to my failure and resting the next day because weather decided to put it's 2 cents in, I came back to it the next day. This time I ate a good meal before I got started. I made sure to center the rim in the changer before I got started. I put a generous amount of Euro Paste on the tire before getting started. I figured with 4g of the stuff, I had some to spare.

I used the tire spoons to get the rim over the lip similar to the way I learned from Cruzman. Taking little bites, I got enough up to use the mongoose demount bar to get it off the rest of the way. I was able to use the mongoose bar alone to get the tire completely off of the rim.

Victory!

With the tire off, I cleaned and inspected the rim and took the time to re-grease the bearings. In retrospect, it felt like it took longer clean and re-grease the bearings than it did to get the tire on the wheel. Mainly because I realized that the chain mainenance kit Cruzman gave me was in my truck that is currently convalesing at his house. I changed my tire without needing to call Cruzman to rescue me. Good thing because they were riding the BRP.

Next step, line up the dot with the tire stem and put that sucker on. I only used the tire spoons and bead keepers for this part because I didn't quite understand that end of the mongoose tool. The videos didn't show that part good enough (until I found one today) so I just used the spoons.

Not long after I took that picture, there was a rumbling in the distance and the wind picked up. I had to hurry to get everything put away before the rains came and ended my work day. I had to close the next day so there was no way I could finish up until my off day on Wednesday. I got up early, eager to set the bead and finish up the rear so I could move on to the front.

Powered by ramen noodles and green plums because I didn't want to take too much time away from changing tires, I got the rear tire back on and was ready to do the front.

With the confidence from getting the difficult rear tire done, I started with the same technique but this time I used the mongoose bar more than the tire irons.

It didn't take near as long to do the front. I didn't even need the mongoose bar to get it on. The tire spoons did all the work and wouldn't even let the mongoose come out to play.

To set the beads, I had Cruzman's compressor on my porch. It's a fair distance to the porch from my work area on a downhill rocky path. It's not my ideal setup but it did the job this time. Next time, I hope to have my own compressor that I can use with an inverter on the car battery.

By the time I got done, the sun was well and truly set. I was so proud. My research and taking the time to get all the tools paid off. I didn't use my wheel balancer yet because there's no level spot on my work area yet. But next time....

Lessons Learned

I can do it! It took about a day and a half spread over 4 days but I got it done. There is a lot of satisfaction in doing it yourself. I was able to clean the axles and spacers, grease the bearings, clean and lube the chain, and reconnect the battery during that time. Baby is still dirtier than I'd like but I'll give him a good clean tomorrow before I leave for the Rally.

Better tools helped a lot. I have an idea to incorporate a duck head like this guy:

But that is gonna take a little more work before it's ready for prime time. With gas prices like they are, I'll be commuting and hopefully riding a lot more this summer. It's my hope to be doing this again this fall.

I really forgot how much I like doing this stuff. I've been using all my energy to work and not saving much for anything else. It seems to be paying off but more on that some other time. I have plans to do some other bike maintenance in the near future.

Since I'm fairly sure I'll be in the little house in the woods for at least another year, I'm going to have to do something to give Baby his own room. It's not fair to leave him out like that. I have a lot of projects I want to do but not enough time and definitley not enough money. If I've learned anything though it's to have patience and take little bites.

Thanks for reading,

patrice, theWolfTamer