My First MP3 Tire Change

With a new Michelin Pilot from MotorCycle Superstore online all I needed to do was swap it out. I could have sent the bike to the shop to do this, but I figured I could save some bucks doing it myself. Besides, these kinds of projects are hardly intimidating. I had the following rendering from the Piaggio Catalogue of Spare Parts. Looks simple enough.

Notes:

• All tools required are metric


• Have a safe place ready to hold the various nuts, bolts, and pins. The one thing you don't want to happen is to lose any of them. They may be difficult or impossible to replace during the weekend or after hours.


• I didn't use the bike stand until after loosening the wheel bolt.

Step 1. Use a (17mm) socket or wrench to loosen the collar fastening the exhaust manifold to the muffler. Once the collar is loosened you should be able to move the collar off the muffler and onto the exhaust manifold. No need to remove the collar completely.

Step 2. There are three bolts which fasten the muffler to the bike. One of the top bolts (pictured) also fastens the parking break cable support. Remove the bolts and put them aside in a safe place.

Step 3. Remove the screw attaching the (black plastic molding) to the aluminum (rear wheel assembly) just above the rear brake (pictured).

Step 4. Examine the wheel nut assembly. The nut is secured by a metal cover held in place by a cotter pin. Notice that if you turn the wheel, the cotter pin turns with it. Turn the wheel until the loop of the pin is oriented with the depression (at about the 4:00 position). This positiion gives the pin more room, making it easier to remove. Straighten the ends of the pin, then pull it out. With the pin removed, the nut cap can be removed by hand, exposing the nut underneath.
The snap ring around the wheel shaft (pictured below) does not need to be removed unless you need to replace the wheel bearing.

Step 5. Use a torque wrench or breaker bar with a 22mm deep-socket 6-point torque socket to loosen the wheel nut. You'll need a deep socket in order to clear the wheel shaft. I do not recommend using a 12 point socket--the force required may damage the nut. Directly under the nut is a bushing you can remove it by hand. With the wheel nut loosened, apply the bike stand.

Step 6. Remove the two allen socket bolts holding the rear wheel support assembly to the crankcase. These bolts are really tight. When they break loose you'll hear it. Keep a mental note of how tight they were, you'll need to tighten them again when it comes time to put things back together.

The first bolt is on top near the water pump. The second bolt is on the bottom near the exhaust manifold.

Step 7. There are five small allen socket bolts holding the brake disc in place. I discovered that it's easiest loosen and remove them one by one by turning the wheel so that they are in the lowest position (pictured below). Once you have removed four of the five bolts, turn the wheel to position the last bolt for removal. However, before loosening and removing this last bolt, put on the parking brake. This will clamp the parking brake calipers to the disc, so that when you remove the bolt, the disc will stay in place. Don't worry if the disc moves or gets out of position. You're just using the brake as another set of hands to keep the disc from getting in the way until you get the wheel off.

Step 8. There's one attachment remaining connecting the support assembly to the bike--the right rear shock absorber. I removed the bolt attaching the shock absorber to the bike just under the trunk, but I suppose you could just as easily remove the bottom bolt if you prefer. Use a 13 mm wrench and put the bolt aside.

Step 9. With all the attachments removed (except for the brake lines), you should be able to carefully remove the support assembly (along with the brake disc) as one piece. You won't be able to go far with it, though, because the parking brake cable and the rear brake line are still attached.

Step 10. The wheel should slide off the driveshaft, and the disc brake should remain clamped by the parking break, still attached to the wheel support assembly. Having a dachsund around to lend a hand always makes things go smoother :)

Here's an inventory of the nuts, bolts and screws removed.

At this point, I had the old tire still on the wheel, and the new tire ready to go on the wheel. Fortunately, my friend Jason has a tire changing tool, and said I could come over and he would help me use it. I forgot to bring the camera with me, but maybe that was a good thing. I'm sure we looked like two clowns trying to put the new tire on.

Getting the old tire off went well enough, but it wasn't easy. If taking the old tire off wasn't bad enough, putting the new tire on proved to be almost more than the two of us could handle. Jason races motorcycles, and said that every Michelin tire he's ever had to put on was stiff. We had to leave it out in the sun to heat up before we could even attempt to get it on. And to make matters worse, once we got the tire halfway on I noticed the direction of the tire got turned around (which must have happened when we set it down to warm up in the sun). So we ended up having to take it off and try again. A trick Jason showed me was to use strips from a cut up plastic milk jug to protect the aluminum wheel while leveraging the wheel on.

Once the tire was on with the correct orientation, we also had a tough time setting the bead--even with his 50 gallon air compressor. He showed me another trick for setting the bead which is to stand the tire up and slam it against the ground repeatedly. Eventually, the tire caught enough air, and... "pop!"... "pop!" The bead was set. We balanced it as best we could (his balancing tool didn't quite work as well as with larger wheels).

After hauling the tire home, it was a simple matter of reversing the process to put the wheel back on. I lubricated the driveshaft with lithium grease before replacing the wheel, although I'm not certain that is required.

I think next time I'm going to just bring the wheel someplace to have someone swap out the old tire. It was a serious pain in the ass.