spent Saturday, chasing and fixing slow rear tire leak

Not using lift chased and found slow leak on Saturday. Lots of exercise removal and replacing rear wheel on ground.

Had slow rear wheel/tire leak....not tire or rim, using soapy water spray found valve stem producing bobbles at one edge.

Removed wheel, broke bead, removed valve stem-threw away, replaced valve stem. Cause of problem=crud around hole and sealing surface on rim....looked like dried up "Ride On" to me. Cleaned, extra good, installed new short valve stem from Honda. Only had to break bead on one side to get in to insert new valve stem and clean. New set up holds air!

Looking back could have probably broke bead, cleaned and installed new stem with wheel still on bike----lots of bending stiff body would have been involved---But with wheel off, got to check possible spline wear(none I could see)greased, rear brake pads still ok but will change them after 50,000 miles, adjusted parking brake a little.

All designers of maxi-scooters should be required to remove and replace rear wheel in the rain, dark night.They could probably come up with better design at same price point. BMW I think is the only scooter right now with easy rear wheel removal. After 9 new maxi--scooters I am tired of the mickey mouse of removing rear wheel!!

Well, Mr Grinsel, at 79 years old, you should feel tired

I am tired of paying money for poorly designed bikes/scooters! No or little thought is given to make them easy to service or live with.

I don't put any sealer in the tyres, I did once, and every time I did a pressure check, sealant came out. Like you John, I usually change tyres once in the year. I find the people that fit my tyres always clean the rim and fit a new valve, and I just carry a plug kit in case of a puncture

I guess it's due to having the engine attached to the bike solidly, engine/gearbox/exhaust all as one unit like my old Lambrettas is a much easier configuration, but on a 600 twin pot water cooled setup would mean an awful lot of un sprung weight! I can't imagine how much more complex and expensive a single sided wheel/suspension unit would be!

john grinsel wrote:

I am tired of paying money for poorly designed bikes/scooters! No or little thought is given to make them easy to service or live with.

I wouldn't say that, over in the Far East in counties like Thailand and Vietnam, there's simple, reliable, and easy to work on bikes like the Honda Wave in it's 100cc, 110cc, and 125cc versions. Bikes like that and similar and basic small capacity scooters are used as workhorses and are the sole transport for countless families. Little workshops that service, repair, salvage and recycle parts for them are everywhere too.

We also had simple and easy to maintain Eastern European two-strokes like the East German MZ, and the Czech CZ, and to a lesser extent Jawa. Even the old air cooled BMW boxer twins were easy to service and remove wheels from.

Now everything is about performance and image, and motorcycling is just another leisure activity. So why not hand your expensive crotch rocket, adventure bike, cruiser etc into a dealers workshop and let them mess with the oily bits.