| [Saturday - May 23, 2020] [Continue from - Whoop! There it goes again.] I took the rear wheel to Brown Motor Works. It took a whole 20 minutes to balance the wheel. I got back home and tried to mount the 43 teeth rear sprocket. No go. The bolt holes were too small. It figures. All of these aftermarket places claim they have the part for the bike but they actually don't. I can't mount the rear sprocket unless I take a drill to the sprocket or use smaller bolts. It's not going to happen. I put the 47 teeth rear sprocket back on and kept going. Mounting the rear wheel was a bit tricky. The brake assembly kept on getting snagged on the wheel axle spacer. Eventually with a little lateral force, the whole assembly popped into place. It's definitely trickier on the mounting than on the take off. Once the axle is in place and the wheel is adjusted for chain tension, it's all locked down at 100nm. Man that's a lot of force. Regardless, I thread lock the axle bolt anyway. Last but not least, the rear brake caliper endures an alcohol rubdown.  There were little splotches of WD-40 on the rotor.  Mounting the brake and ABS line guard. The rear tire also gets an alcohol rubdown to get rid of as much silicon as possible. As mentioned in previous tire change maintenance, some people use sandpaper. After a little rubdown, the tire is tacky sticky. Next the front tire comes off. This is where a bit of frustration sets in. Apparently BMW (probably correctly so), decided to change the from axle lock nut from a male six sides bolt (16mm I think) on the F8GS to a female 14mm hex nut. I don't have a 14mm hex socket. The largest I have is a 10mm. Drat, double drat!  Notice the axle nut. I called Brown asking if they can mount the front tire for me, but the owner refuses for legal reasons. Yeah, I know you don't like to do that. Instead he said he had a universal tool that deals with BMW's front axle. I take the GSW to Brown and purchase the tool. When I got back, the smallest size is a 17mm. Seriously?! It's too big. Oh well, the tool is good for other purposes anyway. OK, I had enough of this back and forth. I call the local Harbor Freights. Sure enough they have the hex metric set that I need. After all this commotion, the front wheel comes right off, the old tire is sitting on the driveway, the new tire is on, and the wheel is being balanced using the Marc Parnes portable balancer. Oh yeah, I had forgotten how time consuming a static balancer can be. OK, good enough. It's time well spent. The front tire goes back on.  Brand new tire. Wheel getting ready to be mounted. I didn't take pictures of the balancer. I did that back when I had the 8GS.  When all is done I alcohol wipe the two front rotors and the front tire. All nuts and bolts, except for the ABS sensor screw, were thread locked. Now that the front is back together, I'm reminded why I always work on the rear wheel first. The front is just so easy and cooperative. It's less frustrating to deal with. The tire bead is there but it's not overly tough. Of all of the tire changes I've done. This is the first bike where I actually had to remove the ABS sensor from their mounted location to prevent possible damage to the sensor. All of the other bikes, I can just slide the sensor out of the way. Through it all, it's nice to finally have a brand new set of tires on The Scooter. Since it's so late in the day, and there are other things to do, the test ride is delayed until tomorrow. I look forward to getting back on this thing again. It's been sitting around for a while pending a tire change. [ Sunday - May 24, 2020 ]  Fully together. Alright! Time to take this baby
out for a test ride.
Oh man. I had forgotten how fun The Scooter is. The front wheel is perfectly balanced. The whole rig rides really smooth. As always The Scooter has top end problems because it's an 800cc. Normal. Still it's a blast to zip down the street. All well worth the time and effort. Baby's back. I can take this sucker out whenever I feel like. Need a bike wash. |