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As some of you may know, my Z4's injested a nail 2nd Friday ago and I ordered some replacement Metzeler Z6's (in part because my beloved Z4's aren't available in a 150/70ZR17 in the country anymore). Took the tires and the bike to the shop that does my mounting for me, picked it up the same afternoon and ride it home in the pouring rain...
Thinking to myself: damn, these tires are loud above about 25, 35 mph, at least compared to the old ones... Parked it at home and went on about my business(es)... But that sound bothered me, kept nagging at me in the back of my head. So, first break I got, I decided to double check the bike out.
Here's what I found:
The Positive:
(+) They mounted and balanced them well. No issue there.
(+) Packed a bunch of grease into the bearing openings, the axle holes, to extend the lifespan of those parts. Big thumbs up...
The Negative:
(-) Front axle bolt over-torqued by 12 to 15 ft-lbs. Rear was reasonably close at 5lbs over.
(-) Chain slack adjusted to the point that there was only 3/8" of total play left. Maybe they figure if they mount my tires, I'll be back to have the chain done (hah!) when it fails from being too tight (?!?!). In retrospect, the noise I heard was probably the chain.
(-) Never wiped off the excess grease. The grease on the bearings was slathered all over, and a few big gobs of it was moving outwards towards the rotor surfaces. If I lived more than a few miles from the shop, or if I had ridden faster (remember it was pouring cats and dogs), my rotors would have been coated with grease, rendering them null and void.
(-) Old cotter pin was re-used on the rear castle nut (maybe he didn't have one that big in stock?).
Cleaned off the excess grease with rags, loosened both axles, loosened the chain adjusters, move the rear wheel forward to add slack back to the chain, retorqued front axle bolt & stuck in new cotter pin, cleaned the hell out of the rotors (brake cleaner and then windex with paper towels). Checked the chain alignment, tightened it up to where it should be (about 1" to 1.1" in my book -- good for long chain life), then retorqued the rear axle nut to spec and used a new cotter pin from my bins.
So, I guess the lesson today is: don't trust anyone else to work on even something as simple as tire-mounting without checking up behind them...
Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet
Thinking to myself: damn, these tires are loud above about 25, 35 mph, at least compared to the old ones... Parked it at home and went on about my business(es)... But that sound bothered me, kept nagging at me in the back of my head. So, first break I got, I decided to double check the bike out.
Here's what I found:
The Positive:
(+) They mounted and balanced them well. No issue there.
(+) Packed a bunch of grease into the bearing openings, the axle holes, to extend the lifespan of those parts. Big thumbs up...
The Negative:
(-) Front axle bolt over-torqued by 12 to 15 ft-lbs. Rear was reasonably close at 5lbs over.
(-) Chain slack adjusted to the point that there was only 3/8" of total play left. Maybe they figure if they mount my tires, I'll be back to have the chain done (hah!) when it fails from being too tight (?!?!). In retrospect, the noise I heard was probably the chain.
(-) Never wiped off the excess grease. The grease on the bearings was slathered all over, and a few big gobs of it was moving outwards towards the rotor surfaces. If I lived more than a few miles from the shop, or if I had ridden faster (remember it was pouring cats and dogs), my rotors would have been coated with grease, rendering them null and void.
(-) Old cotter pin was re-used on the rear castle nut (maybe he didn't have one that big in stock?).
Cleaned off the excess grease with rags, loosened both axles, loosened the chain adjusters, move the rear wheel forward to add slack back to the chain, retorqued front axle bolt & stuck in new cotter pin, cleaned the hell out of the rotors (brake cleaner and then windex with paper towels). Checked the chain alignment, tightened it up to where it should be (about 1" to 1.1" in my book -- good for long chain life), then retorqued the rear axle nut to spec and used a new cotter pin from my bins.
So, I guess the lesson today is: don't trust anyone else to work on even something as simple as tire-mounting without checking up behind them...
Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet
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