What now?

Well, I've been trying to seat the beads on a Bridgestone Potenza G009 195/65R15 for 3 days now. At first I tried it at home and neither side of the tire would seat completely.

Today I took it to an auto shop and they got one side to seat but were too nervous about going about 100 psi to try and seat the other. We put the shrader valve back in and took it to somewhere in the 90's and left it in the sun for at least an hour and one side still had not seated.

So, I came home and lube the heck out of the side that's not seated and took it all the way up to 101 psi with the shrader valve in. Still no go. So right now I have it sitting outside at 101 psi hoping the clouds will go away and let the sun shine on it and increase the PSI.

If this doesn't work I have one other buddy that has a large capacity compressor (180 psi, I think).

Can you guys tell me what PSI you had to go to to get the beads totally seated? It seems like I read on here that someone went to 110 or 120 psi.

I feel like I'm almost there but am afraid to push it in fear of something going drastically wrong. Any input you guys have would be greatly appreciated!

Troy

what I did was make an emulsion of vegetable oil, dish soap and water,
and put it on the rim and the tire , both beads were popped at 80 psi.
some people use vegetable oil , others have used cooking spray.
when the bead is on wash the tire with soap and water before you install it on the bike.
Good luck.
Horse

steel wool / clean the rim REALLY good. Use vegetable oil to lube the rim and tire liberally. Air it up to 100 and put the tire in the hot sun till the bead sets. Might take awhile, but it will seat.

There's a couple of other techniques we have used with success, but are on the dangerous side.

I had a Falken tire that I ended up throwing away. pumped it up to 140 and set it out for awhile. Never did bead both sides. At that PSI, I did not feel comfortable riding it and put the douglas on. sometimes you roll the dice.....

Always TAKE THE SHRADER VALVE OUT! When beading the tire. You DO NOT want to release the pressure while your hands are by the tire in case of failure. You need some quick connects that are close to the compressor and be away from the tire when ever seating the bead. ALWAYS RELEASE THE PRESSURE AT THE COMPRESSOR!

Next as others have said....WASH THE RIM WITH A HOSE AND A RAG to remove all the old soap from previous mountings. The car tire has softer rubber than any motorcycle tire and it will grip on any residue.

Next lather the cooking oil like someone else bought it!..hehehehe Even take all the way up the sides to the lettering. Trust me on this one!

Safety at all cost! Observe all safety and this is a mod that you do at your own risk!


...................bobby

.

Well, I finally got my Bridgestone Potenza 195/65R15 beaded up today! I went to a friends house that used to paint cars and he's got a huge air compressor, capable of 180 psi.

Just to recap, I already have one side of the tire where the bead was set. I lubed the tire and bead with cooking oil (yeah, despite the warnings others have posted) and then on top of that I sprayed soapy water. We also put a ratcheting strap around the center of the tread to force the pressure on the bead. I have already had this tire up to 104 psi so we started at 120 psi. He had a ball-valve on his compressor so we could release a lot of air all at once. We put the tire outside of the garage and around the corner so if anything went wrong we were not in the direct line of fire. I checked the tire and the bead was still not seated. He went up to 135 psi and after checking the bead was still not seated. He went up to 150 psi (at the compressor, we figured this was probably around 130 or 135 at the tire). This time when I checked the bead was seated all the way around the tire! YEAH!!!

We released the pressure (at the compressor) and then set the psi on the tire to 42. I sprayed soapy water on both sides of the tire to check for air leaks at the rim and found none. My friend lives about 30 minutes away from my house so I thanked him numerous times and then headed home to get the tire mounted on the bike.

A couple of my riding buddies were already at the house waiting for me when I got there (our daughters both went to the same church camp today so that just stopped by afterward). We got the wheel installed and I we took off for the initial test ride to make sure everything was feeling good. For balancing I had already put .20 gram air soft pellets in the tire. I put in 3-4oz. of them. We took a slow ride in the country and half way through I let my buddy take my bike for a spin. He has a 2007 VTX1300C so he's familiar with the bike and I wanted to give him a chance to see what a car tire was like. We switched before getting back to the house.

Yes, riding on a car tire has a different feel to it but I got used to it within 5 minutes and was zig-zagging down the road to see how it felt to go from one edge of the tire to the other. Honestly not a whole lot different than a motorcycle tire. But you can feel the tire trying to stand the bike up straight after taking 90 degree turns. Also on un-even surfaces or crowned roads you get a different feeling with the CT compared to a MT. But I really like how it feels and it does seems to soak up some of the smaller bumps in the road. I checked the psi on the tire and it had gone up to 44.5 so I went ahead and took it back down to 39 psi (warm). We ended up riding back to his house (he's about 45 mins. away from me) and showing it to another buddy, who has a HD Dyna Glide. He wasn't really impressed and thought I was goofy for doing this, oh well. After visiting with my friend and for a while I headed back home. I put about 75-80 miles on it today and will be riding the bike back and forth to work this whole week.

I will try and get some pics posted soon.

Thanks to all of you that provide information of suggestions. In the end what really helped me get my tire to bead up was high air pressure. At least I finally got it done and nothing bad happened.

Troy

Troy welcome to the darkside. Took a lot of nerve to take it that high. Could have blown the tire and ruined the rim. Glad it worked out for you. Enjoy your new ride....

Jerry

Wow, I dont think you should have had to go over 110 or 115
Never heard of one going that high, execpt a guy at a tire store said he has gone to 150. He told me should never go over 3 times the max tire presure on the tire.
Glad you got it on safely.

Welcome to the Darkside

Well, I've got just about 200 miles on the tire since getting it mounted on Sunday and the more I ride it the more I like it!!!!

Here's my observations so far. On the initial test drive I could definately feel something different about the rear end and could tell when going from the edges of the tire to the center. But the more I've rode it and gained confidence in its traction the less and less I can feel this distinction. In fact, with two up I can't even tell that we are riding on a CT vs. a MT. I've done a lot of weaving back and forth both solo and two up and it's amazing how hard it is to tell that I'm riding on a CT.

On crowned or un-even roads it becomes very obvious that the tire is not round. But with a little extra input on the handlebars the feeling of control is still there. I've also noticed and my wife has stated this too that the tire seems to absorb a lot of the "little stuff" on the road. She even said that the bigger bumps aren't as bad as they were on the stock tire.

I've been all over the place with air pressure trying to determine if one feels better to me than another. I've had 44, 42, 40 and currently 38 in the tire. At this point I don't have a recommendation for which one's the best.

With as much trouble as I had mounting this tire I can say it was worth the wait to finally get it on. I really love the look and the ride has been very good so far.

I'm coverted!

Troy

Troy, It's all good! Ride what air pressure you feel comfortable with and it's like quaility....you will know it when you see it.


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