Friday, July 8 2016 [27,589 miles]
At the wear bars
The GS front tire was pretty close to the wear bars. It is about 250 miles shy of 10,000 miles old. Front end handling hasn’t been normal for a while. Time for a new tire. Just so happens I’ve had a Shinko 705 of the appropriate size on hand. I bought it in January. I expected I’d need to change the front earlier but I’ve not been putting the same miles on the GS that I used to for various reasons.
Hang calipers out of the way
Front wheel removed
I remembered where I put my home made caliper hangers this time. The calipers were removed and hung with care before removing the front wheel. I alse pulled the front ABS sensor to mak sure I didn’t damage in when removing/installing the front wheel. I wiped the dirt and grime off the sensor, too.
Tire removed
Rotation direction arrow
Red mark at valve stem
I use Murphy’s Oil Soap as a tire lube. It helps in old tire removal as well The Shinko had a red mark – many tires don’t these days. I aligned the mark with the valve stem. Installation wasn’t too bad.
It took a bit of weight to balance the tire/wheel. If I remember I’ll balance the wheel by itself some time in the future. After I did that on my ‘05 I rarely needed to add weights for out-of-balance tires. Maybe this bike will be the same way.
Ready for test ride
The wheel with new tire is mounted and the bike is ready for a test ride. I’ll do that tomorrow.