After years of getting tired of humping new tires and wheels to the shop I decided to give changing them myself a whirl. I actually enjoyed doing it myself and learned a few of things.

1. C-Clamps work great for breaking beads
2. Heat is your friend. Once the bead is broke run a hair dryer on the inside and warm it up
3. Use the auto store lube (Makes life a lot easier going off and on)
4. Get good rim protectors and use scrap plastic from laundry jugs etc. to prevent marring.
5. Harbor Freight Irons are great for getting tires off and spoons are great for getting new tires on.
6. Always use new stems!!!
7. Dyna Beads or similar are a tire's best friend!

I've done two bikes so far, my road king and my Yami FJ1200. Like anything else the more you do the better you get. I have a static balancer but have just been using the beads so far. Next time I'll do both static balance and beads. I love the look of new sneakers on my bikes! It's also great piece of mind. I guess one of the fancy changers would be nice but irons and spoons seem just fine. If you've thought about doing it I'd say give it try. If you have an old tire on a rim you don't care about it's great practice.

 

I started changing my own tires several years ago. You’re right, like anything, the more you do it the better you get and the easier it is.
The first bike I did, I use beads. They balanced the tire great and no wheel weights are nice and clean looking. The problem was I had aftermarket 90 degree valve stems (from Kurygirl) and it was very difficult to get the beads through the valve stem. After reading some posts here, I decided to give Ride On a try.
Ride On is my balancing method of choice. It’s easy to get in through the valve stem. It provides excellent dynamic balancing (no ugly wheel weights needed). It’s not hard to clean up when removing a tire (I wipe most of it out with paper towels over the garbage can, them rinse the wheel off with a hose). It’s not sticky and cleans up with just water. It also provides protection from rapid deflation upon a puncture in the tread face of the tire, which could save your butt at highway speeds (I haven’t had to test this feature yet, knock on wood).

 

I totally agree with you about having to take wheels to a shop to have the tires changed. I happen to have a rim with tire off a 14' Ultra Classic sitting in my garage. I'm going to give it go. Thanks for the info!

 

I put my own tires on the Limited a couple years ago- it wasn't all that hard. Put in the T stems for my FOBO TPMS, and used RideOn for balancing. I also replaced my brake pads at the same time, front and rear.

I'd do it again- I had to spend maybe $50 on the tire irons, rim protectors, etc........ But figure not paying HD to do the job more than offset the cost of the tools. Not to mention that I got tires I like better than what I'd have got from the HD dealer- we don't have many independent mc shops around here that I know of, and from what I've heard, many shops won't install customer supplied tires.

 

8. set the new tires in the sun to warm them up first
9.soapy water works just as well,and dries up tacky
10.take small bites putting the new tire on
11.Breakout rear tires are a WHOLE 'nuther animal.....take 'em in

 

Great tips .......number 10 is critical.

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned about lining up the yellow dot with the valve stem. The yellow dot on the tire marks the light spot on the tire for balancing. This should be mounted at the heavy spot on the wheel. Almost always the valve stem.

 

So right. I forgot to mention that. Thank you!!!

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Love to see a video of someone doing it. Guess I could just youtube it too.

 

I use a cycle hill tire changer, plenty of YouTube vids of tire changing with those.