Tire Removal and Installation
You can save quite a bit of money by purchasing your tires on the internet. But I have found that many cycle shops in town charge quite a bit for mounting and balancing if you did not purchase the tire from them. $25 or more. That really reduces the savings you get by buying online. I purchased a tire changer and motorcycle adaptor from www.harborfreight.com. It makes it fairly easy to remove your old bald tires and mount new tires.
I did have to make a minor modification to the stand. I drilled a hole and put a bolt to keep the top part from rotating on the bottom part. I also used a hammer-drill to drill holes in the garage floor and I put threaded anchors into the holes. That way I am able to bolt it to the floor and unbolt it to store it out of the way when I am not using it.
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First you have to remove the wheel from the motorcycle. For the CBR it is a matter of loosening the pinch bolts and removing the axel bolt and axel. Once the axel nut is loose you should remove the brake caliper from one side, this will allow you to remove the wheel. In some cases the caliper will prevent you from sliding the wheel off. You should never let the caliper hang by the brake line. This will cause stress on the connection possibly causing a fluid leak or line damage. I simply put the caliper back on the mounting points on the front fork.
Once the tire is removed from the forks you can prepare to remove it from the wheel. Use a valve stem tool to remove the valve core from the valve stem. This will let all of the air out of the tire and allow you to remove the tire. You will have great difficulty removing the tire if you have not removed the valve core. Even if you let out all of the air from the tire there is still pressure in the tire so breaking the bead will be much harder. Once the valve core is removed you put the tire on the floor in front of the tire changer. It has a built in bead breaker that comes in real handy. It also comes with a long tire tool that can be used for leverage to break the bead. Break the tire loose from the wheel, and rotate and repeat until the tire bead has separated from the wheel all the way around and on both sides.
Next step is to put the wheel on the top of the tire changer and secure it. It has lipped clamps that grab the edge of the wheel under the tire. You line up two of them on the edge of the wheel then tighten the screw until the third one grasps the wheel. It should be fairly snug on the wheel. I put duct tape on the clamps to reduce the risk of scratching the wheels. Once the wheel is securely mounted to the tire changer you use some soapy water to lubricate the edge of the wheel and the bead of the tire. I use a spray bottle because it is easiest to apply.
I bought some plastic wheel protectors from my local Cycle Gear and I use those where the tire spoon will be used to pry the tire off of the wheel. Just start on one side and work your way around. I used a screwdriver to hold the tire out once the spoon had pulled the bead up over the lip of the wheel. I just moved the plastic wheel protector around the lip of the wheel until the tire was off.
Once the top bead had been complete pulled up from the wheel you can start on the bottom bead. Again, use the plastic wheel protector and spoon to lift the bead up over the lip of the wheel. The bottom bead comes off much easier than the top did. Once you get it started you can pull it off by hand.
Before you begin to put the new tire on the wheel there are a couple of things that you need to do. Make sure you know the direction of rotation for both the wheel and the tire. There should be arrows of some sort on both to indicate direction of rotation. Also on the tire there should be a colored mark (usually a dot) that indicates the lightest spot of the tire. You want to line this mark up with the heaviest part of your wheel, which is usually the valve stem. By doing this it will make it easier to balance and most likely require less weight to balance.
Putting the new tire on is pretty straight forward. The lower bead goes on real easy. Spray your new tire with your soapy water then grasp firmly in both hand and at the right angle you can in one quick motion pop the lower bead on the wheel. Once the lower bead is on double check to make sure your balance dot is lined up with the valve stem. Now just put your plastic wheel protectors in place and use your spoon to push the top bead back onto the wheel. Once the tire is back on the wheel you re-install the valve core and add air. You will hear the tire beads seat on the wheel with a big pop once you start adding air.
I don't have a balancer at my house. I actually don't trust myself to get the tire accurately balanced, so I take my tire to the local bike shop where they charge $7 to balance. That is cool for me and I know that the computer balancer is pretty accurate. Once the wheel is balanced just put it back on the bike and burn up that new rubber you just put on.
I hope this has been helpful for you.
