Mechanical fellowship, another front tire change-out and musings

Last weekend, my best friend and his wife (fellow CMA'ers) ordered a new front tire and inner tube from my affiliate BikeBandit store.  Her 2004 Harley-Davidson 1200C Sportster tire was getting pretty worn down.  She's a good rider, pushing the bike through the twisties safely and with skill.  So we needed to get the tire and tube and get them mounted before this weekend.  As usual, BikeBandit rapidly shipped the tire and the tube, both of them getting to my house within a few days even with the "Free shipping with $99 or more purchase" offer.  Gotta love quick delivery for free!


Due to some weather (yep, in SOCAL) and their church having Thursday night services, we put off the project until this afternoon.  Having just changed out my Concours front tire as posted here, I was confident we could knock this out pretty easily.  Two other confidence building factors were also part of my thinking.  First, my buddy is the better mechanic of the two of us-often he works on my bikes in my garage while I mainly hand him tools.  Plus, the pros at Poway Motorcycle knew we were coming and said they could mount the new tire and balance the wheel while we waited.


So he rides in, we get to work and before long we have an old, smooth tire and 21 inch spoked Harley wheel off the bike.  Here's the short list of what to do and sort of the order we did it in:


Remove axle and axle bolt trim covers
Loosen fork clamp bolt (need an allen key and I think a 5/8ths box end wrench)
Remove one set of fender bolts (again allen key and 1/2 inch box wrench)  I left one bolt in the fender just slightly pulled out to ensure it didn't move around much)
Remove brake caliper bolts and swing caliper off rotor, pad and secure in place.  10mm 12 spline bolts-yeah, suck it up and buy a special socket set.
Loosen axle nut-3/4 inch nut, put something stout in hole in axle on opposite side


Jack up Sportster and remove axle.  Done.  Of note, this Sportster's pipes run above the frame rails, which is a big improvement from my Sportster.  Makes jacking the bike up much easier!  We took the wheel to the shop, they mounted the new tire with the new tube and we re-installed everything.  With two sets of hands vice trying to do this solo, and only one brake caliper to re-install, it was almost quicker to put it back on as it was to take the wheel off.


Oh, did I mention a customer has a SWEET Kawasaki Concours he wants to get running to sell?  Oh brother.


Have a great weekend riding and wrenching!