Hanging the rear wheel

[Peteg]

I hung one rear wheel on one of these double swing arm honda drive shaft bikes. I got into replacing the rear tire on my VTX 1300 with with a quick shrug and "how hard could it be?". Feeling like I was almost done I started trying to slide the heavy wheel under the big fender positioning it for spline mate up and alignment. I finally got done a couple hours later and went to the forum for advise. The old guy (younger than me) who answers all the questions said he likes to raise the back of the bike really high. Then he puts the wheel on his motorcycle jack and uses that to position for hub mate up. I tried it on my Valk. Thought it worked real well. I was able to move the tire in all directions really easily, without moving to an out of reach jack. It was easy to see just when to slip the axle in. Also thanks to Savage's post on axle spline mate up and final o-ring engagement.

[Chrisj CMA]

As long as you removed that Jack and anything else supporting the wheel before torquing the axle nut and then the four final drive nuts.

[da prez]

  I use a 5/8 or 3/4 inch rolling head pry bar inserted from the nut side to do the alignment. Once the spline is installed , I push in the axle and then do the caliper bracket and the rest of the parts. It works for me. To each their own.

                                              da prez 

[h13man]

I raise it high and I use my little 2T floor jack to assist as I'm getting more comfortable using the MC jack supporting this 800lb. beast. I also use a jack stand at the front of the swing arm/rear frame hook up to further secure it with the 2 stands under the engine guards.

On a note, OEM manual suggest taking the rear section fender off but... Its a PITA.

[Chrisj CMA]

All these complicated procedures. lol. All you need is a properly supported M/C Jack and a tie down strap. I lift to the second safety stop Boom Done. Pull the wheel off sitting the floor and lift it by hand back into position. It will be hard if you believe it will be hard.

[Jess from VA]

It's somewhat heavier/bulkier/tighter fit with a 205 60 Michelin Cross Climate 2 car tire.

[Chrisj CMA]

It's somewhat heavier/bulkier/tighter fit with a 205 60 Michelin Cross Climate 2 car tire.

It either fits or it don’t.  lol

Can’t be much of a weight difference. Car tires have thinner weaker sidewalls, might even be lighter than a bike tire

[turtle254]

wrong .. car tires are heaver than  bike tires.
And not car tires, but DOT approved tires for every thing; motorcycle tires are only
DOT approved for motorcycles.

[Chrisj CMA]

wrong .. car tires are heaver than  bike tires.
And not car tires, but DOT approved tires for every thing; motorcycle tires are only
DOT approved for motorcycles.

The average 16” car tire is around 20 lb

I just weighed my new cobra chrome it’s 20 lb

 

[turtle254]

The average 16” DOT approved (no only)tire is around 22 to 24 lb
The average 16” DOT only motorcycle  tire is around 19 or less lb

[Chrisj CMA]

The average 16” DOT approved (no only)tire is around 22 to 24 lb
The average 16” DOT only motorcycle  tire is around 19 or less lb

I guess it depends on which web site you’re on. lol

What I found. Was that 16” car tires (not small truck or SUV) are anywhere from 15-25 lb.  That’s why I said around 20lb.  My bike tire is 20lb. So I’m pretty sure the weight difference is not significant

[turtle254]

Take your motorcycle tire with you to a discount tire store or some other and compare them side by side and you will be surprised at the different in construction. The motorcycle tire will then feel like a bicycle tire. To pass DOT spec for "car tire" is very different than for a motorcycle tire. Very stringent for a DOT tire and not for a  "only" DOT tire for motorcycle. You can run a "car tire" flat till it comes a part and it wont un bead, but a "only" motorcycle tire will come off bead quickly. I have been running a car tire since 2005 on all my motorcycles and I can tell you the "only" give a way manufactures to low a specs on construction.
Give your self chance and take your unmounted motorcycle tire to a car shop and pick up an old car tire laying a round and you will see the different in construction.   
I mount my tires my self and it take great force to break the bead on a car tire tire, but on a motorcycle tire, I can just step on the edge and break it off wheel.

[h13man]

All these complicated procedures. lol. All you need is a properly supported M/C Jack and a tie down strap. I lift to the second safety stop Boom Done. Pull the wheel off sitting the floor and lift it by hand back into position. It will be hard if you believe it will be hard.

Good on you in being strong enough but as you age its not going to be that easy. "Lift it by hand" isn't going to be available. Trust me. 

[Chrisj CMA]

All these complicated procedures. lol. All you need is a properly supported M/C Jack and a tie down strap. I lift to the second safety stop Boom Done. Pull the wheel off sitting the floor and lift it by hand back into position. It will be hard if you believe it will be hard.

Good on you in being strong enough but as you age its not going to be that easy. "Lift it by hand" isn't going to be available. Trust me. 

Well. It’s worked for 22 years and I’ll be 65 in a month. I guess we shall see.

[turtle254]

[/quote]

Good on you in being strong enough but as you age its not going to be that easy. "Lift it by hand" isn't going to be available. Trust me. 
[/quote]
Pull the rear fender's back piece , its easy. Roll the tire in and out. I'm 80 so that makes it so easy. Saves my back, which at my age is important.

[Chrisj CMA]

Good on you in being strong enough but as you age its not going to be that easy. "Lift it by hand" isn't going to be available. Trust me.  
[/quote]
Pull the rear fender's back piece , its easy. Roll the tire in and out. I'm 80 so that makes it so easy. Saves my back, which at my age is important.
[/quote]

not really helpful with my hitch installed. But thanks anyway.

[Peteg]

This seems like the right thread for me to post the following:

I recently spent about a week trying to determine if there was any correlation between car tires and early wheel bearing or spline failure. It seemed like common sense to me that there would be a correlation, but I could find no real evidence to support my theory. If anyone likes boring reading, let me know and I'll publish about a page and a half to back up my findings, or lack there of, in detail.

[Jess from VA]

I also payed close attention to the effect of a car tire on wheel bearings, if any.  And never found any correlation at all.  The rear single row bearing (left?) failure rate was as common for bike tires as car tires (more on bike tires, because there's more of them in use).  And the cut down spacer and double row bearing replacement solved that problem.  No CT issue on the pumpkin splines either.

The shaft, cup, boot and splines need good interval service and lubrication or there will be trouble regardless of what tire you run.  

[Peteg]

I also payed close attention to the effect of a car tire on wheel bearings, if any.  And never found any correlation at all.  The rear single row bearing (left?) failure rate was as common for bike tires as car tires (more on bike tires, because there's more of them in use).  And the cut down spacer and double row bearing replacement solved that problem.  No CT issue on the pumpkin splines either.

The shaft, cup, boot and splines need good interval service and lubrication or there will be trouble regardless of what tire you run.  

Yeah Jess, that's pretty much where I landed too. First I went all though this website, then looked at gold wings. My logic said that the wheel bearing failures were causing the spline failures as end of life wheel bearing free play allowed misalignment between the hub and ring gear beyond the design limits of the spline. Thinking it through I said if that's the case then there should be early wheel bearing failures on Harley's, Indian's and metric cruisers running CT's. I really couldn't find any evidence anywhere, and people have been running car tires forever. So for my theory to be correct I'd probably have to be the smartest guy in the world and everyone else, well I'll be nice. One interesting question I came up with is should guy's over in England put the extra bearing on the right side.

So the following link looks at my theory in a video form. My theory says that the Honda drive trane engineer never designed for the low side wheel bearing  loads, also the road crown loads on the left side bearing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwSSXHanpv0
The CT low side loads pretty much look like they're being carried by one bearing. Anyway If my theory was correct people would not be able to run their CT loaded wheel bearings for 100's of thousands of miles just by doing spline maintenance at 10,000 mile intervals. In fact if my theory were correct guy's  would likely not need to do frequent spline maintenance. My thought is they would be able to check wheel runout on the bike with the bike jacked up and only tear into the rear end if their tire or wheel bearings needed replacement. Too bad it was a good theory, could have saved a lot of work.