Interesting about the 90 degree valve stems. When I did a lot of track days, the racers used to say never to use the 90 degree stems as the weight of them would cause a failure with extended high speeds. Maybe these aluminum ones are better? I would love to have an accessible valve stem, but $30 each? Ouch!
As I posted earlier, I have the HF changer and definitely recommend that you get a mojolever too replace the HF one. (Well, I still use the HF lever to operate the bead breaker, but that's it.)
The Mojolever
I just used my equipment a couple of weeks ago and here is some more feedback.
- Mount the HF changer to the floor. Don't try to "ghetto it" like me, where you bolt it to long pieces of metal and then have to stand on the thing to keep it from rotating and or tipping. It would be so much easier to change tires if I just put some concrete anchors into the garage floor, but I'm stubbornly waiting until I get a detached garage.
- Be sure that you push most of the tire down to the center of the rim when trying to de-mount the tire. This is more important on the rear, which is a bigger, stronger tire. I sort of bent the bolt on my mojolever while trying to get the bead flipped. I contacted Mitch (the guy that makes the mojolever) and he's sending me a new bolt. Apparently, he redesigned the end to use a larger diameter, stronger (non-stainless) bolt after I bought mine. I can't use the larger bolt, but he is giving me a strong bolt of the same size of mine. Anyways, pushing the bulk of the tire to the center of the rim gives you more working area of the tire.
- You can balance the FZ6 wheels with the stock axles, using a big pair of jackstands. Put the axle through the wheel, and place the axle ends up on jackstands up high enough for the tires to clear the floor. Make sure that the stands are level to each other, the spin the tires and make sure that they don't stop at the same spot. My Conti Road-Attacks had colored dots on them, which I aligned with the valve stem location, and my wheels needed no weights added to them, beyond what they came with from the factory. Apparently Yamaha did a good job neutral balancing the rims and the Contis are a well balanced tire.
- Use blocks of wood or something similar under the sides of the rim when breaking the bead. This is to keep the brake rotors off of the ground to avoid bending them.
- I don't use the upper arm part of the motorcycle attachment, just the rim clamp part. I then put in a metal rod, and use that to work the lever around the tire. The upper arm part just seemed to get in the way.
- Be sure the double check the rotation direction of the tire and the rim before installing them. I had a close call on my rear tire, where I had the first bead over the rim already when I checked again and realized that it was on backwards.... It was easy enough to get off, but I sure am glad that I caught it before getting both beads on.
- When adjusting your rear wheel alignment after putting you rear wheel back on, remember if you happen to have a yamaha tail rack installed. If you forget, you can bang you forehead on it and cut your head open...
I have attached some pictures here to show some of the tire change process, and my ghetto setup.
Linear Mode
