In (On) with the New

Sunday, 02.24.2013:  New tires, tubes, and rim strips showed up over the weekend!  Now the real fun begins... wrestling with getting the old tires off and the new tires on.  Definitely time consuming and quite the workout, but the savings is incredible.  Honda of Cool Springs wanted over $120 to mount the new tires...  $80 if I took the wheels off and saved them that labor.  I figured I'd at least give it a shot and if I got fed up with it, I'd concede and pay the dealership's astronomical rates.  It was definitely no small feat, but I did ultimately get the old tires off of the rims.  I had a feeling there would be some significant rust that I was going to have to sand/polish out.  And there was.  Fortunately, my buddy, George, had a couple of different wire brush attachments that can be mounted to a drill, so I was able to save a considerable amount of time using these wire brushes.  Even with the wire brushes, I probably spent close to two hours per wheel getting them to a place where I felt comfortable mounting new tubes and tires.

One of the other headaches with changing tires is removing the wheels.  Mainly the rear wheel.  This bike has an endless chain (as opposed to a chain with a "master" link that allows for easy removal).  And the rivets are smashed or mushroomed, so a chain breaking tool renders useless.  The only way the chain was coming off of this bike was to remove the rear swing arm and disconnect the left rear shock.  Sigh...

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, because while it added another 30 minutes worth of work, it was good practice and provided a greater understanding of how all of these parts go and work together.

A new chain (with a master link) is definitely going to go on this bike down the road, but the existing one appears to be in good enough shape that I can get away with running it for another or so - after I've paid for a couple of other things like a helmet (I gave my old helmet away to my friend, Eric, in AZ years ago because I didn't think I'd ever own another motorcycle after CO.), registration fees, etc.

Here are a few pics of the wheels and drive chain off of the bike, brakes and wheels after some cleaning up, and the rims during the rust removal:

And here are some pics of the new tires just after being delivered and then the rear tire after being mounted: