My new rear tire arrived yesterday. So after mowing the yard and eating some pizza, it was garage time.
When I bought my Harbor Freight tire changer last year, I tried mounting it to the floor with what were essentialy lag bolts for concrete. Just drill the holes and screw in the bolts. I had touble getting the holes to drill, and that led to a poor fit if the bolts. So the other day I bought some inserts, larger lag bolts, and another masonry bit in a larger size. While there are better options for mounting something to the floor, I need to keep the tire changer removeable, so I can park the lawn mower in that spot. I drag out the tire changer when needed and set it up, the rest of the time I have it stored away.
The inserts and new bolts did the trick, after I started adding water to the holes being drilled. The water made a huge difference, and allowed me to drill deep enough.
Once I had the changer bolted down, I was ready to tackle the tire swap. A modern BMW bike has a single sided swing arm. The rear wheel has four lug bolts holding it to the hub. Remove those and the tire and wheel are free, well almost. I did find that I had to remove the rear fender extension, which was held in place with 3 sheet metal screws. Once those were removed, I could swing the extension out of the way and roll the tire out.
Over to the tire changer, release the air in the tire, break down the beads, adjust the tire changer for the 18 inch rim, and pop the old tire off. Just about that easy. I then put the new tire in place, verified the rotation arrows direction, soap up the beads, and install the new tire. OK, going back on with the new tire took more effort, but not much more.
Got it aired up and realized I had missed aligning the balance dots with the valve stem. Let the air out and tried in vain to get the tire to slip on the rim after breaking down the beads. I ended up removing one bead and then turning the tire. Of couse it tried to move soime during the re-installation, but my son and I rotated it back before I aired it up.
My son was great help. Having a second pair of hands saved a ton of effort and cussing. Keeping the beads in the dish of the wheel during removal and install is critical with these stiff sidewall tires.
By the time I had his Cutlass, the lawn mower, and my bike back in place for the night, a mere 3 hours had passed. Getting set up and tore down took the most time, as the actual tire change took less than 30 minutes.
It felt good to be back in the saddle, in spite of the questionable weather. :biggrin:
Sounds like quite an ordeal but at least the next time you won't have to do the extra work of putting the tire changer down again, well not the drilling part anyway. Lets hope the rain is done for the day and you can ride dry tonight... :biggrin: