Car Tire

[hootmon]

Allen
Good effort on the SeaFoam
Nice Fender on the Magna!!!
How many side wall belts does the tire have? I'm interested in how much lateral motion you experience in corners..
Also what PSI are you running??? Have you settled on that yet?

[roboto65]

Not yet and not many on the sidewall it was very flexable when it was off the rim have not really tested it yet and I took the wheelwieght off so time will tell I will sure test it good on the way to MOOTMaG!!

[hootmon]

The reason I ask is my tire only has 1 Poly belt on the side.. Two would be much better I would think.. Just planning ahead..
It would be great to get several Magna's all together that have different Car tires and let everyone try each and fill out a survey on different characteristics.. We might be able to come up with a pretty good consciences on pro's / con's / recommended's / not-recommended's -

[hootmon]

OK, nobody has updated this thread in a while.. So here you go..

I've got about 10,000 miles on my Car tire now..

I think the tread is wearing excellently (Very even) with no noticable difference in handling since the install.

Here are some pictures..

10K picture




Original picture..

[TLRam1]

It does look like you wore off the white line down he middle.  Wow, it looks great Hoot! How many miles do you think you can get?

Seafoam, yea I see it. 

[hootmon]

I would hope I get at least another 10K..

[MarylandMagnav45]

I would hope I get at least another 10K..

looks good.

I'm going to do darkside to my Magna as well when my rear tire goes bald.

I've felt I've accumulated a lot of miles on my rear tire but it still has great tread. 

No odometer so I can't know for sure....last 4 years give or take?

I'm guessing I've been riding maybe 2,000 miles a year...

and this year 2008/2009, i've ridden about 12,000 miles/year since I don't go to college anymore

[barkymarky]

My rear tire on my 95 VF750 is a 140/90/15. I measured it to be:
wide - 6 1/8
high - 26 1/2
tread - 7 5/8.
I thought a 140 would be smaller than a 150. This is so confusing. When I buy a new rear tire I want something wider (just to look cooler). My height is fine.
The people that created this tire language are the same Rat Bastards that make us buy flat screen TVs and then when you play a DVD it only fills 2/3 of the screen. WPWW.

[TLRam1]

My rear tire on my 95 VF750 is a 140/90/15. I measured it to be:
wide - 6 1/8
high - 26 1/2
tread - 7 5/8.
I thought a 140 would be smaller than a 150. This is so confusing. When I buy a new rear tire I want something wider (just to look cooler). My height is fine.
The people that created this tire language are the same Rat Bastards that make us buy flat screen TVs and then when you play a DVD it only fills 2/3 of the screen. WPWW.

What brand of tire do you have? The Dunlop 140 overall width is narrower than the 150.

[barkymarky]

The brand is a Continental.

[hootmon]

My rear tire on my 95 VF750 is a 140/90/15. I measured it to be:
wide - 6 1/8
high - 26 1/2
tread - 7 5/8.
I thought a 140 would be smaller than a 150. This is so confusing. When I buy a new rear tire I want something wider (just to look cooler). My height is fine.
The people that created this tire language are the same Rat Bastards that make us buy flat screen TVs and then when you play a DVD it only fills 2/3 of the screen. WPWW.

How many side wall ply's does it have??

[Greg Cothern]

Remember that the tire sizing goes like this:

140 is tread section wide in mm, 90 is an aspect ratio for sidewall height being 90% of the tread section width 140mm

140 * 0.90 = 126mm sidewall height.

IF you were to run a 150/80 (stock size) it would be 10mm wider and only 120mm tall.
A 180/70 is 126mm tall on sidewall
a 170/80 is 136mm tall
etc
etc

The 170/80 is pretty much the tallest widest tire that will fit under the Magna without major modifications.  IT will require a brakestay rod change/modification.  The 180/70 also a VERY good choice also.
HOWEVER remember that depending on the tire manufactuer that there is still some slight differences in these real-world measurements.  For example that Metzelers have a more aggressive tread to sidewall blend (greater lean angles and still have tread) than say a Dunlop.   

[lragan]

OK, I bit the bullet on the 2nd '96, and bought a "Nanking" car tire that looks for all the world like the pics that Hoot posted.

There are no markings on the tire, at least that I could find, that shows a preferred direction of rotation.  In fact, if you examine the tread, it seem perfectly asymmetric about the center of the tire.

Man, what a rassle to get the old tire off!!.  I had bought a "motorcycle bead breaker" from Harbor Freight, (which works OK, but I had to add a cheater pipe to have a hope of breaking the beads loose) but I had to return and buy two of their tire irons (they were on sale, I paid $7.56 for the pair including tax, title and license!) only after inflicting a couple of ugly dings in the rim with the crowbars I was trying to use.  The "nearside" wall was not too difficult to pry off the rim, but the "farside" was a major pain. 

I notice there are two dots on the sidewall.  One is red, the other is a yellow circle.  I presume that the idea is to line up one of these lovely markings with the valve stem?  If so, which one?

I bought some of the "magic beads" to use for balancing, but the wheel has quite a bit of weight on it already.  What is recommended, that I leave these in place and see if the dyna-beads will balance the tire OK?  It is hard for me to believe that my formerly beautiful, cast and machined aluminum wheel could be out of balance far enough to need this wad of weights.  I have ridden the bike at speed, and it is smooth -- so I have to believe the tire/wheel is well balanced...

And finally, does anyone have any sage advice as to how to persuade the new tire onto the rim?  Soapy water?  Dance to the tire god?  A burnt offering of the old tire to appease the evil spirits that make this so difficult?

[hootmon]

I do not have a tire machine, and was able to install the tire with HF tire irons by hand, a lot of sweat and a few choice words...
Believe it or not - that was not the hard part.. Getting the tire to seat, was the hard part..
I tried several different things including polishing the bead on the ream to make it smoother so the tire would slide easier.. I also went down to Napa and bought a gallon of RuGLYDE - which is made for the purpose of mounting tires (I'm not convinced it worked any better than some soapy water, but probably won't corrode the rim)...
I had to get the tire up to 115 PSI to get the tire to fully pop onto the rim..
Most of this is covered in earlier posts..

I would mark where the weights are on the rim and take the weights off.. the Dyna Beads should balance out the tire with no problems. Otherwise the beads will mostly be counter-acting the weights...
I used about 2.5 oz of beads and it works great..

Let me know if you want me to mail you some RuGLYDE - I still have just about a gallon!!! I think Terry might have some as well..

[BA]

As a last resort, you could always spray some starter fluid inside the tire and seat it with a match.