Finishing the wheels and tires

Okay after trial runs with my truing stand, I went to ACE and picked up some shaft collars to hold the wheel in place.


Here's my tires. Shinko Classic 240's from http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/



Here's the dial indicator and Pat getting to work on the rear wheel.

Pretty much good to go a couple of hours later.

Here's the redneck indicator,

On to the front, we tried starting out with all the spoke snug, but we kept have one real bad jump in the rim, so we actually started completely over and loosen all the spokes. We found a better plan in a Harley manual. (All the Kawasaki manuals don't even mention wheel building.)

So this is how it goes, mark four sets of spokes each 90 degrees apart. Snug those and leave the rest loose. True those four area's, for roundness and side-to-side, to each other.

When the wheel is good and true with those four sets, then torque all those loose spokes.

Check and fine tune the wheel again with all the spokes, but it should be very close.


With the wheels true, now on to tires.
Fresh rim strip.

A little spray wax on the bead, just the bead.

Work the first one on.

A little help at the end.

Put the tube in.

A little wax on this bead, too.

All together. Now fill the tube with air and empty it. I used dynabeads to balance the tire. We didn't get picture, because it was a big pain, but hopefully worth it.

Swap the rotors and the other wheel hardware and mount 'em up.

I love this nasty old style tire with no fender! I need to finish dechroming the front end for sure. I'm leaning to fork gaitors now instead of black beer cans.