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!

One project done but more keep piling up

Yesterday I got the front wheel and new tire back from Poway Motorcycle and mounted them on the Concours.  This motorcycle maintenance project is not that hard, and all of it except the actual mounting of the wheel to the bike/lining up the axle is easily done by one person.  Actually it's probably best done by one person, but lining up the axle and getting it through forks, collar, wheel, speedo drive and other fork took some doing.  But I've got a brand new tire from BikeBandit on the bike.  This one will probably take me through to 100K.


Yesterday and today the new front tire and inner tube for my friend's 2004 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200C arrived, so we're going to pull that front wheel off the bike, run it to Poway Motorcycles to have the new tire put on (with a tube ready to go, just in case) and then remount it.  Should be a straightforward project, but one interesting difference is the star-headed bolts holding the brake caliper on the bike.  Not sure I have a wrench or socket that fits those.


I also still need to bleed the front brakes on the 1994 Connie, then re-mount the front fairing stay, accessories and front fairing to optest the bike.  One at a time....

You win some, you lose some

Last night kind of late I got started on two motorcycle maintenance projects on the Kawasaki Concours.  I needed the time in the garage, but was taking care of other things throughout the day and early evening.  So later than I planned I started the first project, which was pulling the front wheel and tire off of the 1986 Connie.  As usual, I had to get help getting the bike onto the centerstand, something I've only been able to do once or twice by myself.  I used a floor jack under the front of the engine to shift and keep the weight to the rear and then gathered the assorted tools to take the wheel off.  It's actually quite simple-6 mm allen key for the axle clamps, 10 mm allen key for the brake caliper bolts (on the older C10s-the newer one is a 12 mm head on the bolt), and a 12 mm allen key for the axle.  The speedometer simply unscrews and that's it.  So in no time at all I had the wheel off and ready to go to Poway Motorcycles today to have the new tire mounted and balanced.

So with a few extra minutes I attempted to bleed the replacement brake set on the new-to-me 1994 Concours.  This maintenance project took the rest of my time, and unfortunately the brake lever is just as spongey now as before I started messing with it.  This is the brake system I mounted back a little while ago (as I posted here) so it's obviously not a priority project!  I could make the excuse that bleeding brakes by yourself is hard (it is) but I've done it before.  So it's time to go through the whole system tightening banjo bolts and trying again.  Still a ways from taking the new bike on a test ride, but that's ok.  Well, sort of!