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Tires/Rims/Tubes Q&A

  • Thread starter Thread starter witttom
  • Start date Start date
W

witttom

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I'm fairly new to the GS world, so please forgive my ignorance. ;)

I'm in the process of mounting new tires on my 78 GS750 Cafe Racer project. My neighbor is a motorcycle mechanic and has a tire mounting machine in his garage, so that makes life a little better.

Anyway, last week I walked my rear rim over to him looking for some help. It is a cast rim with an old cruiser type tire on it. It was ROUGH dismounting this tire. I don't mean rough as in "Normally Difficult", I mean it was more difficult that what I'ver ever seen. I guess it was just an old tire and hard. Anyway, as we pulled they tire off, we discovered that it had a tube. Why would this have a tube?? Well anyway... the tube had something inside is rattling around. I was just gonna pitch the tube and go with a regular stem, but I didn't have one. After I put some more thought into it, I began to wonder. Maybe the tube was there for a reason. So, we left the rim there on the machine and over the next couple days, I made my way to the local shop and bought a tube. Holy crap... mounting this tire with a tube totally sucked. Even with four hands, we struggled. I don't know why. But in the end... mission accomplished. Sure, it took a freakn week, but I eventually got it.

So this morning, I walk the front wheel over. Same scenario. Hard tire and a b!tch of a time getting it dismounted. ...and, you guessed it. A tube. The tube was not in good shape (and it has some nasty tire sealant in it) and like last time... I don't have a new one readily available. So now I've gotta wait till Monday to go buy one, and I sure as heck ain't looking forward to having to mount the new tire with one.

So, my real questions.... were these cast wheels originally intended to be used with or without tubes? Can I use my tubeless tire WITHOUT the tube?
 
Not on a 78. Yes, they are mags, but they are tube-type, not tubeless.
 
witttom said:
I'm fairly new to the GS world, so please forgive my ignorance. ;)

I'm in the process of mounting new tires on my 78 GS750 Cafe Racer project. My neighbor is a motorcycle mechanic and has a tire mounting machine in his garage, so that makes life a little better.

Anyway, last week I walked my rear rim over to him looking for some help. It is a cast rim with an old cruiser type tire on it. It was ROUGH dismounting this tire. I don't mean rough as in "Normally Difficult", I mean it was more difficult that what I'ver ever seen. I guess it was just an old tire and hard. Anyway, as we pulled they tire off, we discovered that it had a tube. Why would this have a tube?? Well anyway... the tube had something inside is rattling around. I was just gonna pitch the tube and go with a regular stem, but I didn't have one. After I put some more thought into it, I began to wonder. Maybe the tube was there for a reason. So, we left the rim there on the machine and over the next couple days, I made my way to the local shop and bought a tube. Holy crap... mounting this tire with a tube totally sucked. Even with four hands, we struggled. I don't know why. But in the end... mission accomplished. Sure, it took a freakn week, but I eventually got it.

So this morning, I walk the front wheel over. Same scenario. Hard tire and a b!tch of a time getting it dismounted. ...and, you guessed it. A tube. The tube was not in good shape (and it has some nasty tire sealant in it) and like last time... I don't have a new one readily available. So now I've gotta wait till Monday to go buy one, and I sure as heck ain't looking forward to having to mount the new tire with one.

So, my real questions.... were these cast wheels originally intended to be used with or without tubes? Can I use my tubeless tire WITHOUT the tube?
Click to expand...


Hey Tom. Yes, those old star mags used tubes, they tended to be porus and leaked. Just like the old BMW snowflake mags. You'll notice nowhere on the rim is it embossed 'For Tubeless Tires' as later wheels are.

You can try running them tubeless, My 550 is currently running tubeless rear and a tube in the front. The rear requires a bit of air on a weekly basis.
 
Unless your bike has rims that are different from mine somehow, you should be able to run tubeless no problem. What you need to do of course is install new valve stems.

'79's came with tubes as well. With new valve stems there is no problemo.
 
Tubeless

Tubeless

Dont use tubeless tyres on a non tubeless rim WITHOUT a tube. Tubeless rims have a lip on the inner surface to hold the tyre there in case of a leak/flat. I dont care if u are running no tubes its your problem! Oh by the way i have worked in a bike tyre shop (Tyres for Bikes) for 20 odd years so that answers that. Sorry to be a smart arse but thats the facts
 
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Not wanting to be a smart arse myself, why did every shop I asked tell me differently?
 
Sharpy is correct in that there is a much wider lip on one side of a tubeless rim than on a tube-type rim. I learned this from personal experience; I could change tires on tube-type rims but could not on tubeless rims due to the wider lip.
I suppose that a tubeless tire on a tube-type rim has the potential of coming off the rim completely in case of a flat. This is speculation on my part; I never ran the risk myself.
 
Well, I'll be. I don't want to take over the thread, but I researched this out before and got a much different take on this. You indeed may be right....and its sure no big deal to put on tubes......but that wasn't the info. I got.

Guess I'll have to keep askin around. Thanks for the start anyway.
 
New Thread?

New Thread?

OK lets start another thread. Who knows which bike had the first tubeless rim on it? In Australia if im correct (and im only 1/2 human) it was the GS850g and only the front had a tubeless rim and the rear was standard. Go figure that one. Ding Ding, let the games begin! LoL
 
On my 1980 GS1000G the rear wheel is stamped with "tubeless tire applicable", however there is no such stamp on the front wheel :confused:
 
Neither front nor rear on my "83" GS 1100 E are stamped "TUBELESS", but as far as I can tell, there has never been a tube in neither of them. Just had new front tire installed last week. The shop guy came out & asked, You don't want a tube in this thing do you?, it isn't stamped "TUBELESS". I said naw, just mount it tubeless. He said that's what I thought, it's done, I just wanted to be sure.
 
Appreciate all the replies. I'll being going ahead and replacing the front with another tube (which I'm not looking forward to) rather than just a stem.

When dismounting/mounting tires on these rims, we did infact notice that the locking groove is not nearly as defined as it is with true tubeless rims. Nor did we hear the big "POP" when seating the rear (although it did seat).
 
Tires/Rims/Tubes Q&A

My 81 GS 850G has a tube type front rim & a tubeless rear rim as a previous post. It came with tubes in both but when I put new tires we left the tube out of the rear but put one in the front. My service manager says someone swapped a rim as "...they would never put a mismatched set of rims on a bike."

They would never drive a luxury liner into an iceberg at full speed either but they did. You got what you got if it says tubelees it is, if it doesn't say anything it ain't reliably so. No one including Suzuki has made it clear to me to take a chance. I subscribe to all the theories & believe none. Would hate to have the wheel suddenly disengage while I calculated how much I saved on not putting in a tube.:?

DH
 
Ebay usually has wheels for sale from bikes that are being parted out. It would seem to me that the small price would make it worthwhile to switch to tubeless wheels. The wheels usually aren't expensive.
 
I've had several GS's with a tubeless rear and tube- type front. Why do you think the factory used tubes on the tube- type wheels? That's the more important question than can I 'get away with' running them tubeless.
 
Tires/Rims/Tubes Q&A

Just a flaky guess while I'm up too late & brain muddled. Somehow they ended up with more tube type fronts than rears & rather than throw them out or use them as fake UFO's they began producing tubeless rears before they ran out of tube-type fronts. But just a shot in the dark.
:-#
 
The old star-shaped wheels that are not stamped "tubeless" will interchange with the newer tubeless wheels.

If you have a 79 thru 81 GS850G or GL, for example, you may get a tubeless wheel designed for an 82 GS850G or GL, or GS1100G or GL, and install it on your older bike. It will bolt right up. This is a viable solution for those who prefer running tubeless tires at both ends.
 
Interesting thread I've started here. Hehe... I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one scratching my head and mumbling "Hmm... I wonder why... ?". Hehe... and to think that I thought I was asking a newbie question that was probably already answered in a FAQ somewhere. ;)

Hoping to have my new tube in hand today during my lunch break, and with a little luck, have the tire mounted before the end of the week.
 
trispeed said:
I've had several GS's with a tubeless rear and tube- type front. Why do you think the factory used tubes on the tube- type wheels? That's the more important question than can I 'get away with' running them tubeless.
Click to expand...

Having worked many years at a company that produces consumer products, I can tell you that the bean counters track every, and I mean every, cent during the entire phase of a product. If they could have gotten away with not having to (a) qualify the tube, (b) purchase the tube, (c) stock the tube, (d) insert and inflate the tube, (e) ship spare tubes to the dealers, etc., etc., they would have done it to save money and increase profits.
Until you work in the environment, you do not realize how much it costs end-to-end to have another part in the system. If Suzuki could have done without it, they would have done so from the start.
Stepping off the soap box now...:)
 
Looks like I better get the tubes put on. I wasn't trying to save money, really thought it didn't make any difference. Shows what happens when you think you know something.

Sometimes you have to listen to a preacher.
 
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