Pirelli tire bead issue

[Buffalo Bill]

Ok, decided to try a Pirelli Sport Demon on my 1100G.
Bummer, the bead would never sit right. Tried all the tricks, but looks like a tire fail.
No tire should be so hard to mount, so decided to go back to using Shinko 712R.
I'm sure I been riding with the Pirelli improperly mounted for the last 1220 miles.
I've had great consistent results from Shinko 712R tires.

[rphillips]

More info please. How and when did you find it wasn't right. Had it shown problems in that 1220 mi.?

[Suzukian]

I don't get this. I just mounted some Pirelli Diablo II's on my ZZR1200. Not harder to do than any other tire?

[Buffalo Bill]

The tire seemed ok until this week. Worked well on the roads.
The bike had been sitting for a week until I rolled it out for inspection before a ride.
Tire was very low and would not hold air, then I discovered the air was leaking quickly from the rim edge.
Worked on seating the bead a few hours, until I decided it was hopeless.
Tire held air but, bead not truly seated.

[Rob S.]

Year of the bike? Are the rims truly designed for tubeless use? And are the tires truly designed for tubeless rims?

[Cipher]

The tire seemed ok until this week. Worked well on the roads.
The bike had been sitting for a week until I rolled it out for inspection before a ride.
Tire was very low and would not hold air, then I discovered the air was leaking quickly from the rim edge.
Worked on seating the bead a few hours, until I decided it was hopeless.
Tire held air but, bead not truly seated.

Did you kink the bead wire?
and why is Pirelli touting cross ply vs bias.

[rphillips]

Now that's different, Did you ever see anything that indicated a problem? Usually a problem like that would show up initially. After a thousand mi. most imperfection would have kind'f "seated" itself in by then. Being a Bias ply tire it will be stiffer, we can get accustomed to the newer softer radials these days.

[GregT]

Back when the Dunlop 591 came out, that was one of the first bias ply touring tyres. Working in a shop which mainly sold tyres, I saw a lot of effort go in to beading them up.
Pressures as high as 90psi were sometimes needed - even lubed.

[Buffalo Bill]

Back when the Dunlop 591 came out, that was one of the first bias ply touring tyres. Working in a shop which mainly sold tyres, I saw a lot of effort go in to beading them up.
Pressures as high as 90psi were sometimes needed - even lubed.

Hey Greg, I had the psi at 100-120.
I did not use soap, having learned that was bad. Street tire shops in Chi and NYC used soap, but I learned here from members soap was bad.
I used liberal amounts of "Tire Mounting Lubricant" from NAPA.

[Carter Turk]

Did you try a ratchet strap around the center of the tire while airing up?

Had to that just week ago mounting a Metzeler Road Tec 01.

[Cipher]

Hey Greg, I had the psi at 100-120.
I did not use soap, having learned that was bad. Street tire shops in Chi and NYC used soap, but I learned here from members soap was bad.
I used liberal amounts of "Tire Mounting Lubricant" from NAPA.

Siap corrodes the wheels. Gid awful thing to use.

[GregT]

Hey Greg, I had the psi at 100-120.
I did not use soap, having learned that was bad. Street tire shops in Chi and NYC used soap, but I learned here from members soap was bad.
I used liberal amounts of "Tire Mounting Lubricant" from NAPA.

Fair enough, plenty of effort.
Back in the day here in NZ, a couple of sidecar racers used to help finance their season by selling tyre lube they'd made themselves, Under the brand name "Bear Snot"
It smelled foul. Memorably bad.

[rphillips]

Wondering if you ever "saw" an indication of what caused the problem, or did everything on the tire look OK?

[Buffalo Bill]

Wondering if you ever "saw" an indication of what caused the problem, or did everything on the tire look OK?

My thought was I could grind away the inside edge of the tire a bit, just round it some. That would probably do it, but maybe not. However, WTF how about a better product?

[Buffalo Bill]

Did you try a ratchet strap around the center of the tire while airing up?

Had to that just week ago mounting a Metzeler Road Tec 01.

you betcha i did