« Cautionary Tale | Main | Grand Old Day »
When I first got my Lambretta back in 1984 (?) changing a tire was a daunting task. And for a while, Lambrettas were the only vehicles upon which I changed tires (the Batcave was nothing if not a specialty shop). Then I did the Heinkel, which did not have the Lambretta's split rims. I have since replaced the first Maicoletta's OEM tires with Cheng-Shin's (imported from the UK), the Trail 90, and now the Letta 275.
It's hard to mess up changing a tire, though I cannot say that I look forward to the job. I had had the Letta on the lift earlier in the day to replace one of the Letta's more quirky pieces: a hose connecting the exhaust pipe muffler with the gas tank. I guess the idea is that the exhaust gas pressurizes the tank just so: the bike will run but poorly if the hose is not connected. I suspect that the faulty hose (it had become pinched between the swing arm and the frame stop) was contributing to the stalling I was getting on the way home on Thursday.
The simple job of changing the tire (swapping out a bald Cheng-Shin for a new Shinko) made use of a varety of tools I seldom use: the air wrench to quickly loosen and tighten the wheel nuts, the 2½ ton lift, the tire levers from the Moto Morini's BMW toolkit. How grateful I am to have them all in one place. Moreover, I am grateful for the lessons Walter Alter taught me about making sure the bead was visible all the way around the rim, and pressurizing the Hell out of the tire to get it to sit straight. How he would have liked to have the lift and / or the compressor in his shop. Of course, he probably would have liked a toilet too. Recently, Walter has been occupying himself with ever larger projects.
Despite my inability to adequately sort out the gearbox in the other Letta, there are some easy jobs of which I am capable of performing. Changing tires and replacing hoses seem to be about my present limit.
Posted by Underblog at June 4, 2005 4:14 PM
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.mayoreric.com/blog/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/193
Don't pinch the tube! Put a bit of air in it before mounting the rim. Nice shop.
Cheers,
Walter
Posted by: Walter Alter at June 12, 2005 11:40 PM
