LDRydr
A Homeless Nomad
This past Thursday I hopped on the FJR and headed out about 10am on a ride to pick up more Dam pictures (www.damtour.com), look for my pictures HERE, rider #8014. Six and a half hours later I pulled back into the garage after bagging pictures of four dams and logging 486 miles (overall avg of 56.9mph, moving avg of 64.5mph). I didn't get a chance to ride on Friday, almost went for a ride Saturday but something came up and I didn't. Today I decided to straighten up a bit in the garage (unbury the workbench) and went to move the FJR and dammed if it didn't have a flat rear tire. It was up on the center-stand so I hadn't noticed. Funny thing is that while I was riding around searching for dams I'd ended up on a bunch of gravel roads, one going almost two miles in on big crushed rock, the kind that will slice up a tire. I remember thinking it would be a bad place to get a flat. Guess I was pretty lucky to not have it go flat until after I arrived back home.
As you can see from the picture the Pilot Road was just about ready to be replaced. It had served a good life, taking me out to St. Louis last year for the finish of the Iron Butt Rally (and watching Iggy, ScooterG and others come riding in) and many more miles after that. I figure it has about 8k-9k on it (5k to the IBA finish alone), almost all of it slab. I have a slightly used BT021 hanging on the wall ready to go so I figured I had nothing to lose in trying to learn something by patching it. Here's the steps I went through:
Tire after too many miles of slab riding
The 6d duplex nail I pulled out. It was buried past the second knuckle and was barely visible, the top of the nail was worn off.
After I pulled the nail out. It looked the same after using the rasp (reaming) tool.
The patch kit I'd purchased at an auto-parts store long ago. The gold colored wormy things came with the kit, I added the
black ones and the additional rubber-cement (the original had leaked out). It all fits in the clear plastic tube.
The two important tools, the rasp (reamer) and the plugger
The instructions say to lube the plug with rubber cement before inserting but I didn't want to open it, so I figured spit
works to lube up most everything else so it should work fine here :lol: This is after inserting the plug but before pulling
the plugger back out.
The plugger tool has a split in the end of the "eye of the needle" so quickly pulling the plugger out leaves the worm patch in the
tire. I didn't take a picture of it but the next step is to simply cut the excess worm off flush with the tire. I may have left more
of the worm than the half-inch recommended. The worms are ultra-sticky, and stick to everything, including fingers, floor, etc.
Exact instructions from the kit:
1. Put a few drops of cement on the tip of the rasp. Put the rasp into the puncture hole and pull in and out a few times.
2. Insert a repair strip (worm) into the needle tool and apply cement to the tip of the needle tool.
3. Insert needle tool with strip firmly into the puncture leaving 1/2" of the strip sticking out.
4. Pull needle tool straight out rapidly and trim off the excess.
Last thing I did was fill the tire up using my air compressor, not the Slime mini-compressor I carry on the bike (in the interest in saving time and my back). My spit-leak-detector was showing the worm patch holding. I'll check it again over the next couple of days and decide if I want to ride it to the shop (with wife following) to have the BT021 mounted or if I'll pull it off and take it in. Either way I feel good about learning how to do it, and knowing I'll be able to do it beside the road if I need to. I'll add a final comment in a few days telling how/if the repair held.
Coincidentally, I have a SmartTire tire-pressure monitor system waiting to go on to the FJR. It was mounted on my H-D (which I just sold) and I was just waiting for the next FJR tire change to install the sensors in the tires. Looks like the back one will get done this week, and I may have them go ahead and do the front just to be on the safe side. It obviously can't alert me to a problem if it's hanging on the garage wall. Not all flats are instant deflation. A slow leak, like the one that was most likely happening on my tire, is easily detected with a monitoring sensor and can alert you before the situation gets dangerous. If you frequently ride in out-of-the-way places where there's little traffic and no cell signal you may seriously want to consider having something like the SmartTire (since they're not making the SmartTire for motorcycles any longer).
As you can see from the picture the Pilot Road was just about ready to be replaced. It had served a good life, taking me out to St. Louis last year for the finish of the Iron Butt Rally (and watching Iggy, ScooterG and others come riding in) and many more miles after that. I figure it has about 8k-9k on it (5k to the IBA finish alone), almost all of it slab. I have a slightly used BT021 hanging on the wall ready to go so I figured I had nothing to lose in trying to learn something by patching it. Here's the steps I went through:
Tire after too many miles of slab riding
The 6d duplex nail I pulled out. It was buried past the second knuckle and was barely visible, the top of the nail was worn off.
After I pulled the nail out. It looked the same after using the rasp (reaming) tool.
The patch kit I'd purchased at an auto-parts store long ago. The gold colored wormy things came with the kit, I added the
black ones and the additional rubber-cement (the original had leaked out). It all fits in the clear plastic tube.
The two important tools, the rasp (reamer) and the plugger
The instructions say to lube the plug with rubber cement before inserting but I didn't want to open it, so I figured spit
works to lube up most everything else so it should work fine here :lol: This is after inserting the plug but before pulling
the plugger back out.
The plugger tool has a split in the end of the "eye of the needle" so quickly pulling the plugger out leaves the worm patch in the
tire. I didn't take a picture of it but the next step is to simply cut the excess worm off flush with the tire. I may have left more
of the worm than the half-inch recommended. The worms are ultra-sticky, and stick to everything, including fingers, floor, etc.
Exact instructions from the kit:
1. Put a few drops of cement on the tip of the rasp. Put the rasp into the puncture hole and pull in and out a few times.
2. Insert a repair strip (worm) into the needle tool and apply cement to the tip of the needle tool.
3. Insert needle tool with strip firmly into the puncture leaving 1/2" of the strip sticking out.
4. Pull needle tool straight out rapidly and trim off the excess.
Last thing I did was fill the tire up using my air compressor, not the Slime mini-compressor I carry on the bike (in the interest in saving time and my back). My spit-leak-detector was showing the worm patch holding. I'll check it again over the next couple of days and decide if I want to ride it to the shop (with wife following) to have the BT021 mounted or if I'll pull it off and take it in. Either way I feel good about learning how to do it, and knowing I'll be able to do it beside the road if I need to. I'll add a final comment in a few days telling how/if the repair held.
Coincidentally, I have a SmartTire tire-pressure monitor system waiting to go on to the FJR. It was mounted on my H-D (which I just sold) and I was just waiting for the next FJR tire change to install the sensors in the tires. Looks like the back one will get done this week, and I may have them go ahead and do the front just to be on the safe side. It obviously can't alert me to a problem if it's hanging on the garage wall. Not all flats are instant deflation. A slow leak, like the one that was most likely happening on my tire, is easily detected with a monitoring sensor and can alert you before the situation gets dangerous. If you frequently ride in out-of-the-way places where there's little traffic and no cell signal you may seriously want to consider having something like the SmartTire (since they're not making the SmartTire for motorcycles any longer).
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