Yet another tire question - Tube or Tubeless?

Hi guys. It's time for new tires on the old girl. I was reading the factory service manual one day about changing tires and I seem to recall a line stating that the wheels on my '81 550 Maxim are not designed for tubeless tires. Can someone confirm or deny this? I don't want to buy something that I can't use. I mean, something ELSE I can't use! :roll:

 

i would recheck that service manual (spoke wheels must have a tube but mag wheels can use tubeless tires) whether or not you need tubes the best prices on bike tires are at www.bikebandit.com try Cheng Shin tires they are inexpensive and are made of a soft rubber that is tacky and will last for many miles i love my cheng shin tires.

 

i second that on the CHeng Shin Tires. I have had real good luck with mine and the price is right.

 

UH OH. Another tire war coming.

If the factory manual says use a tube, use a tube.

You can put a tube in a tubeless tire. You won't need rim strips because it's not a spoked wheel.

 

+1 ^^^^^

 

i have a tube on the front and a tubeless on the back its whatever you prefer you can use both.

 

just to confirm. my Maxim has the stock spiral "cosmetic spoke" wheels but I consider those mag wheels. For me true spoke wheels are the old classics with adjustable rods which come through the wheel (thus the advisability of rim bands to avoid penetrating tubes and, in my motocross days, to reduce shift of the tire and tube on the wheel).

Izzat right? or am I confused about that?

 

Sounds like you have a handle on it to me!

 

Thanks for the reassurance, TSize. I've been biking so long that I finally figured out "the more you learn, the less you know". Making assumptions about a bike I don't know all that well (just because I think I'm experienced) can be Guinness-class stupid, especially since a wrong assumption may be a quick ticket to serious road rash.

BTW, I'm a forum administrator myself (@robertearlkeen.com and a couple others) and this XJ forum seems an amazingly friendly, good-natured, helpful (and smart) bunch of people. So it this all a trick? Is XJBikes really simply one giant computer somewhere? Or is it that our (super) moderators simply tell jerks and flamers to go to Hell or Harley sites?

thanks,
gene

PS. My shop worked with a ton of genuine spoke wheels in the old days, and though they are kinda classy in a purist sense, keeping them trued was such a hassle our job code for them was "PITA" wheels. (Hint: we didn't mean bread and the first two letters stood for "Pain In...")

 

Usually community pressure works. Occasionally one of the big guns has to clear out a trouble maker.

 

I used to use Chen Shin Hi Max tyres (ten-fifteen years ago) but then went back to Avons which I stuck with. Maybe it was because the price differential disappeared or maybe I just had good feelings about Avons because their tyres are good for sidecars.

I thought I'd mention a 'Kings' tyre I had for afew years on the front. A friend of mine in a bike shop recommended it to me.
He said, 'You'll like this Greg, it's soft, but it's hard.'
Maybe I should have known better. Did it wear ? No. Did it grip ? No - especially in the wet. Except it was predictably bad. It's amazing to think about the confidence of youth, but I remember that pillion passengers could feel the front wheel stepping out on bends, particularly on some wet and oily roads around Hackney and Bethnal Green. At least one person commented that my singing 'Slip sliding away' to myself as I threw it into the bends didn't help their confidence although they had confidence in me - I was a courier at the time.
After 8, 10, 12,000 miles there was barely any noticeable wear, but by fifteen thousand it had quite eccentric wear on the leading edge of each tyre block, which made cornering even more interesting. I finally junked it with less than half the tread worn through although I think it's still lurking in the garage somewhere.
They've probably improved a lot since then. Remember if you're on a budget - they're soft, but they're hard.

 

I'm not sure if anyone answered the original question but blueseca came pretty close. Since tubeless tires are all you can find these days there
really isn't any point in asking but just to clear it up you can use tubeless
tires on ANY alloy wheels as long as they don't have spokes, even if they had tubes before. You might have to buy new valve stems to fit the holes though if you had tubes. Some people will claim the wheels are different for tubeless tires but that's not true of Yamaha wheels, they are all the same. My '78 SR500 came with tubes but they are such a pain to change I got rid of them and just use tubeless tires without any tubes. On wheels that old the edges of the rims are likely to be scarred up from using steel tire irons and have dirt and corrosion on them so you might have to do some cleaning, filing and sanding to get the edges smooth again so the tires will seal. I had to clean mine with a wire brush and file the gouges smooth then paint the inside to get a smooth surface so the tires would seal. An '81 model should have came with tubeless tires and the rims should be in pretty good shape so you shouldn't have any problems.

 

I'm not sure if anyone answered the original question but blueseca came pretty close. Since tubeless tires are all you can find these days there
really isn't any point in asking but just to clear it up you can use tubeless
tires on ANY alloy wheels as long as they don't have spokes, even if they had tubes before. You might have to buy new valve stems to fit the holes though if you had tubes. Some people will claim the wheels are different for tubeless tires but that's not true of Yamaha wheels, they are all the same. My '78 SR500 came with tubes but they are such a pain to change I got rid of them and just use tubeless tires without any tubes. On wheels that old the edges of the rims are likely to be scarred up from using steel tire irons and have dirt and corrosion on them so you might have to do some cleaning, filing and sanding to get the edges smooth again so the tires will seal. I had to clean mine with a wire brush and file the gouges smooth then paint the inside to get a smooth surface so the tires would seal. An '81 model should have came with tubeless tires and the rims should be in pretty good shape so you shouldn't have any problems.

 

Thanks guys. I finally got my hands on an original owner's manual and it states tubeless. Not sure why the Yamaha service manual would ask for tubes, but, whatever. Tubeless it is.

Cheers!

 

Whether it be a bike or a car, unless you are just into the look of traditional spokes, tubeless tires and rims are just so much less of a hassel, and in my opinion a good bit safer too.

 

Heh. Trust me. Kings tyres have not improved! I had a set of them on my CX500 when I bought it. Luckily, a bit of an inexpected windfall enabled me to put my favourite BT45s on shortly afterwards.

Made out of the finest teflon, or so it felt, it was ok-ish in the dry on a warm day after a couple of miles. Cold/wet or both, forget it. Ride like a wuss was the order of the day. Slip sliding away indeed..

The only tyre I've had that was worse was a £10 "Swallow" brand 3.50x10 on an old Lambretta years ago. It was physically hard, the rubber (rubber?) on that thing. Refused to die, refused to grip. That was soon disposed of to a mate who needed something *that day* to pass his MOT with. He gave it back a few days later, preferring to use his old, worn Pirelli SC28...


I was planning on putting a pair of BT45s on my 550, but I've heard lots of good things about Maxxis (Cheng shin "premium" brand) tyres. Especially the price. £35 or thereabouts including fitting from my local friendly tyre dude.

Might give them a go methinks, especially as I'm a bit past the "lean it to infinity.. AND BEYOND!" riding style.. More of a "slow and steady" rider nowadays.