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Installing Tires

Rudyjo

Dale Rudolph
Just bought a new set of tires off the internet, this will be my first time installing
them myself. It was my understanding that you are supposed to line up a marking
on the tire with where the valve is. There are no markings on these tires that I can tell, I called Bike Bandit where I ordered them from and they told me that they
could not give technical information on installing parts. I called one other place
that sells tires and was told that "OFF THE RECORD", if there is no marking on the tire, then It
doesn't matter how you mount them. These are Michelin Pilot Activ tires going on a
1992 K75RT. They are Bias ply tires. Are there markings only on radial tires?
Should I just mount them and not worry about it? Will be giving DynaBeads a try.
 
tire mark

most brands have yellow mark to show the lightest side of tire. Normally that will be aligned with the air valve hole in rim. Better than that is to check balance of rim and mark it also, then match the heavy side of rim with light side of tire, which lets you balance with the least amount of added weight. Hope that helps, you can verify about markings on Dunlop.com for one. Bias ply tires that I have bought are always marked, the last with a small yellow circle.
 
Thanks Paul and welcome to the forums. A colored dot is what I was expecting to
find, but there are no marks on them. I have no way of checking the ballance of the rims or the tires. maybe some tires are so well ballanced when they are made
that they don't put a dot on them.
 
Michelin tires

I googled "Motorcycle tire installation" and according to the one site that answered this, Avon, Continental, and Michelin do not mark the light spots on
their tires. Bridgestone and Dunlap use a yellow dot and Metzeler and Pirelli use
a red dot. I have to assume that it doesn't matter how they are installed as
long as the arrow is facing toward the front of the bike. For those of you who have
installed Michelin tires, is this correct?
 
I googled "Motorcycle tire installation" and according to the one site that answered this, Avon, Continental, and Michelin do not mark the light spots on
their tires. Bridgestone and Dunlap use a yellow dot and Metzeler and Pirelli use
a red dot. I have to assume that it doesn't matter how they are installed as
long as the arrow is facing toward the front of the bike. For those of you who have
installed Michelin tires, is this correct?

Yes, what I have done and it adds some time is mount the tire but did not seat the beads. Put it on my tire balancer to see if the weight was way off. If it was I would them rotate the tire on the rim and recheck balance before seating the bead. On tires that are marked this is usually not neccessary.

Once the bead is seated I then balance the tire and mount the weight permanently.

With dyna beads these steps may not be needed.

Roy
 
webbikeworld Says

If anyone would have the answer, Rick over at webbikeworld would know. I sent him an email and his responce was that a couple of tire makers, including Michelin
now claim that their technology is so good that there are no longer any light
or heavy spots anymore, just mount them and get the arrow going the right
direction.
 
Yep, Metzler and others have a colored dot to mark the light spot (so you line it up with the valve stem). Michelin does not and they do claim that the tires are made so well they don't need it.

I find that the balance on a Michelin is no better than a Metzler, they are both very good. I think it is more that they don't want to spend the money on testing and marking them, but that's just my guess.

You should balance them. You can get a good balancing system with Marc Parnes or No Mar. I don't want to start a Dynabeads war but I no longer use them for various reasons.

Mounting your own tires saves time (no trip to the dealer), money, and you have the satisfaction of knowing you did the job. You also can run your tires longer since you can change them on your schedule.

Buy a balancer and complete the job correctly.
 
RoboRider

As someone who has only one bike and only puts around 2500 miles a year on it,
at this point, It wouldn't be worth the expense or the limited room I have in the
garage. If I knew someone who had a tire balancer, I would gladly pay them to
do it. I'm with you,there's no need for another DynaBead war. For $11.50, I'll try
them, if I'm not happy them them, I'll break down and take them into the only
motorcycle store in this small town and have them balance them. Thanks for your
reply.
 
If you lived in Raleigh I'd balance them for you! I've met some nice MOA guys via my No Mar tire changing system. I bet you'll be fine.
 
RoboRider

Hey Rob, that's a great offer, the only problem is that by the time I get to your place and then get back to Oregon, it will almost be time for another set of tires.
 
Power to you...

I mounted mine by my self a couple of months ago. I learned a lot by doing it and next time will be much easier. I had some help from motorcycle forums and YouTube was very useful...

Let us know how it goes.

Pete in OKC
 
Senior Moments

I hate to say this, but I already found out that the 2nd time is easier. I don't know
what I was thinking, but after I mounted the front tire and put it back on the bike,
I realized that I put the old tire back on again. The new one was outside, I was working in the garage, and picked up the old one after cleaning up the rim. Doing
the whole thing again did go faster. I will be 60 in a few months, the senior moments are happening more often now.
 
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