bigone5500
Registered
About a week and a half ago, I discovered my rear tire was flat on my Hayabusa, the second in three months. Turns out I had picked up a two inch long sixteen gauge finishing nail in which the nail went in head first and left about one eighth of the tip sticking out. Very slow leak which is what probably saved me from being stranded. So there was very little online about repairing a motorcycle tire and after a bit of research, I found that it is 'ok' for the most part if certain criteria are met. Without dwelling on that too much, I simply installed a combination plug/patch to the inside of the tire using a high quality vulcanizing adhesive. Done.
Now, for that to happen, you have to remove the tire from the wheel. Shops are costly. So I decided to purchase a Rabaconda street bike tire changer and OH MAN am I glad I did. I was able to remove the tire from the rim in a couple minutes. I repaired my small hole and re-mounted the tire in short order. This thing is a money savin' sunnamagun!!! I also purchased the Motion Pro Axis wheel balancer. I chose it as it has a folding design which can be hung on the wall out of the way and has less parts to lose. This was my first time to balance a wheel and I had the thing balanced perfectly in less than 5 minutes.
So after all that was done and I got the bike back together, I took the bike to the highway to check my handy work. I took it out on interstate and got it up to 80 MPH and could not feel any vibration.
So my purchase of the changer, balancer, and wheel weights came out to just over $800. Now, if you consider that the tire that had the nail in it has less than 2000 miles on it and the fact that I would have needed to purchase another tire and pay a shop to put it on, then all that tallies to ~$400. I feel it was money well spent and I now have the great feeling of accomplishment having done yet another level of maintenance to my machine.
You could also hire yourself out and make a little pocket change with this setup. But I'd probably only do it for those I knew. Folks always wanting to sue for something.
Now, for that to happen, you have to remove the tire from the wheel. Shops are costly. So I decided to purchase a Rabaconda street bike tire changer and OH MAN am I glad I did. I was able to remove the tire from the rim in a couple minutes. I repaired my small hole and re-mounted the tire in short order. This thing is a money savin' sunnamagun!!! I also purchased the Motion Pro Axis wheel balancer. I chose it as it has a folding design which can be hung on the wall out of the way and has less parts to lose. This was my first time to balance a wheel and I had the thing balanced perfectly in less than 5 minutes.
So after all that was done and I got the bike back together, I took the bike to the highway to check my handy work. I took it out on interstate and got it up to 80 MPH and could not feel any vibration.
So my purchase of the changer, balancer, and wheel weights came out to just over $800. Now, if you consider that the tire that had the nail in it has less than 2000 miles on it and the fact that I would have needed to purchase another tire and pay a shop to put it on, then all that tallies to ~$400. I feel it was money well spent and I now have the great feeling of accomplishment having done yet another level of maintenance to my machine.
You could also hire yourself out and make a little pocket change with this setup. But I'd probably only do it for those I knew. Folks always wanting to sue for something.
