Kumho after 1000 miles

[yamahamer]

After 1000 miles of trying different PSI and getting use to the tire I am still torn. First of I will say this is not for everyone by any means. If you are a casual rider, long trips, or just a comuter then you may want to concider the dark side. However if you are an agresive rider that loves the sound of the floor boards on the road at 70+mph it may not be for you. I have found my sweet spot as far as PSI in the tire but it is 5lbs over the max sidewall rating. I am a very agresive rider so the presure others run didn’t work for me.

PRO’S

Great stoping traction, great wet road traction, great interstate ride, and you can do burn outs all day and not hurt the tire.

CON’S

Bouncy ride almost like a bad shock or low tire, when agresive in a turn I get a drifting feeling and you have to counter steer a lot sooner.

I will continue to run the C/T for now just to see how much abuse it can take. This is only my opinion and anyone wanting or thinking of trying this all I can say is take your time it’s a diferent ride and if it works for you it will save you money. If it doesn’t work for you then it was an experience and it only set you back about $60 bucks.

Mark

[GG54172]

Thanks, I have a pretty aggressive commute to work. I wore out the side of my front tire and the center still has plenty of tread. I think I would stick with MC tires.

[BoomerCPO]

I have 2 brand new Michelin Commander rear tires sitting on the shelf. As soon as I use them up I am going to the darkside for sure.

 

 

Boomer......who's never gonna mention putting a car tire on the scoot to the wife ever again.

[OutKast]

I have about 1500 miles on my BFG. I agree with yamahamer.

 

The BFG will be for sale as soon as I can afford a new E3.

[Kregerdoodle]

The jury is still out on my Kumho, probably have 1500-2000 miles on it, I am running 43lbs in it and 40 in the front Avon Venum, I had a scare yesterday on the interstate, I gunned it and swung out to pass and almost lost it, had a real bad wobble from front to back, felt like the rear was washing out from under me.. not sure if its the tire or not, I posted a while (few days) back about a clunk sound when I take off, still got it, I have checked for anything loose.... I am going to try and check the swing arm today, not really sure how, but I`m going to jack it up and start taking it apart. If I don`t find anything ( loose swing arm bushings) then I am going to get rid of the C/T... if this doesn`t fix the problem, then I will get rid of the RSV... that really scared the #$% out of me yesterday, and if I am afraid to ride it, I don`t need it.. any Ideas or sugestions would be great.

 

Thanks,

 

PS, bike is a `01 with around 21k on it, I just tightened the steering head bearings while up at Lowells a few weeks ago.

 

K

[yamahamer]

What you felt was the tire. I felt the same thing and had someone follow me and confirm what I felt. I have taken the trunk off my venture and notice a big change in the way the C/T feels. I now have 6k on my Kumho and I don't think I'll buy another. It's not for an agressive rider at least not on this big of a bike.

[Kregerdoodle]

It rides great 2-up, but most of my riding is solo...... I`m gonna strip the rear end today and see if I can find out what the " Clunk" is... almost sounds like the brake pads moving around.. thanks for the reply, think I am going to take a look at EIII`s this time around, the Venums where great, got 12k out of the rear, but it squared off real bad, Guess I need to ride more twisties..

 

K

 

 

 

 

What you felt was the tire. I felt the same thing and had someone follow me and confirm what I felt. I have taken the trunk off my venture and notice a big change in the way the C/T feels. I now have 6k on my Kumho and I don't think I'll buy another. It's not for an agressive rider at least not on this big of a bike.

[BigBoyinMS]

It sure confuses me to read post's like this. Even when my tire was new I've never had issues like these. No bouncyness, no wobble, no strange handling in the curves, nothing negative. It just feels like a cycle tire with great traction to me. And I'm running 36lbs in it now.

It's like it's different on each bike or maybe it magnifies any minor issue there may be.

[gunboat]

dave it sure confeses me also. kreg has complaned about the clunk for a while now ( before the c/t). we thought it may have been the drive shaft with dry splines, lubed them and no help. lubed the rear hub fingers, no help. i have a "clunk" on mine but it's when i shift in 1'st gear. and a lot of folks have that. he thought it might have been the rear brake shoes but that wasn't it. so i guess that only leaves tearing the swingarm out and doing a inspection & lube. would realy not like to see kreg sell the bike. hopefully we can find the problem.

don c.

[BigBoyinMS]

Since y'all have had the wheel off there's no use in mentioning wheel bearings; I'm sure you checked those. The shock and shock links have multiple mounting points; wouldn't hurt to check that. Nothing else comes to mind other than what you have checked already. Maybe it's that bowling ball he has rolling around in the trunk?

[gunboat]

hi dave

kbay pulled the rear wheel off to check the swing arm. no side to side play. but kreg did notice when he unbolted the rear axle pinch bolt that the right side swing arm sort of "twisted/ sprung" a little? now we did noticed that the rear brake pads were loose in the caliper, we checked mine and they were tight. we swaped bikes for a few miles, the first thing i noticed was his rear brake pedal goes futher down than mine. now he has installed new rear brake shoes on his bike, well in the last 9 mos or so. my rear pads are around 2 years old. we checked the pistons in the caliper to see how much they moved by not being bolted in. i saw the rear pistons move futher than the front pistons. the bike has got over 20,000 miles on it, but it did set idel for a while before he bought it. the rear shock had no signs of ever leaking. i tried to make his bike do the pig slaping / side to side shake (wobble) that a few of us have had / experiance. but i never pushed his bike pased 70 mph.

so this is still an unsolved issue. we will see how it goes next week.

don c.

[gunboat]

now i did push my bike thru the gears at 4'th i was doing over a 100 and just started getting a little wobble. but shifted to 5 and started to slow down and the little wobble went away. i normaly ride 5 to 10 over the speed limit. i told kreg i'am using 36 psi in the rear c/t and am happy with it. i think he's up around 40 psi. just my trying to help my brother out. i have been well pleased with going to the darkside, but i do know some folks are not. as i have said this is not a mode for everyone. but its working for me, and my style of riding.

don c.

[OB-1]

After 1000 miles of trying different PSI and getting use to the tire I am still torn. First of I will say this is not for everyone by any means. If you are a casual rider, long trips, or just a comuter then you may want to concider the dark side. However if you are an agresive rider that loves the sound of the floor boards on the road at 70+mph it may not be for you. I have found my sweet spot as far as PSI in the tire but it is 5lbs over the max sidewall rating. I am a very agresive rider so the presure others run didn’t work for me.

PRO’S

Great stoping traction, great wet road traction, great interstate ride, and you can do burn outs all day and not hurt the tire.

CON’S

Bouncy ride almost like a bad shock or low tire, when agresive in a turn I get a drifting feeling and you have to counter steer a lot sooner.

I will continue to run the C/T for now just to see how much abuse it can take. This is only my opinion and anyone wanting or thinking of trying this all I can say is take your time it’s a diferent ride and if it works for you it will save you money. If it doesn’t work for you then it was an experience and it only set you back about $60 bucks.

Mark

 

I know what you have/are experiencing. I tried car tire last year and decided that it wasn't for me.

[skydoc_17]

First off I wanted to say that I admire you darksiders for "thinking outside the box" as far as your tire selections go. As a First Gen. Rider I don't have a car tire option available but if I did I would at least give it a try. With that being said let me get on to the information I recently found out about the swing arm bushings on a First Gen with only 25,000 miles.

The bike was brought to me because of a high speed "wobble" and I checked the usual things, Steering head bearings, binding front fork tubes, I played with the air ride controller front and rear, checked tires for abnormal wear and air pressure. Recently, I have been checking the final drives for perpendicularity to the axle and have had to shim one or two so they would not be bound up. I had my indicator "rig" on the final drive and noticed some unusual movement. I checked the rear tire and tried to check for swing arm side play, and by hand could not move the rear tire side to side. But as I lowered the bike back down on the rear tire I saw and heard unusual movement in the swing arm. At that point I was convinced that the swing arm was the issue so I removed the rear tire, final drive and disconnected the swing arm from the rear shock. When I put my indicator on the swing arm in a "static state" The swing arm moved side to side over 1/8 of an inch!! When I reattached the rear shock the preload made it almost impossible to detect the side movement by hand but with a "cheater bar" I could move the swing arm side to side and heard a "clunking sound" as I did so. I removed the swing arm completely from the bike and disassembled the entire swing arm and pivoting shock mount and discovered that there are steel sleeves that the retention bolts pass thru but there is also a plastic (delrin) sleeve between the swing arm housing and the steel bushing the bolts pass thru. The plastic (delrin) sleeves were BADLY distorted and this is where the side to side play was coming from. *NOTE* This was on a bike with 25,000 miles on it. When I pulled the swing arm off of my 87'VR with 80,000 miles on it the plastic (delrin) sleeves were ALMOST COMPLETELY GONE!! As we speak I am in the process of machining a complete set of solid bronze bushings to replace the mild steel and plastic sleeves that are currently in the swing arms of the First Gens. The bushing bronze is self lubing, and should eliminate the lateral movement in the rear end of my 87'VR. I really didn't notice a problem until I installed the FJR1300 final drive and increased the torque on the final drive and swing arm, much the same way your car tire puts more stress on the final drive and swing arm. I will post again as this project progresses. I have attached a few pics.

Thanks for your time,

Earl

[gunboat]

hi earl

thanks for your reply and pictures. you do have a point, three years ago i finally figured out my rear shock was bad. i bought it bike used it's a 99 rsv had just over 21,000 miles on it. while i was waiting for the shock to arrive from japan. i decided to remove the swing arm to lube everything. not a bad job just an all dayer, now i am on my seconed c/t put over 31,000 miles on the first one. i have not had a issue with a "clunk" as kbay has heard/felt. but we did not pull the swing arm off the bike or do the cheater bar check. maybe this is something we should do in the next week or two. i do have a spare swing arm i bought off ebay a couple years ago. some shop up in n.y. was doing a trike converson and i got the swing arm with pumpkin but no drive shaft,for a good price for the set up (was going to do the vmax mod but never did).

thanks again

don c.

[Ozlander]

Skydoc 17

While you have that apart, be sure to replace all the bushings in the linkage and install the gease zerks.

Then you can grease it anytime you want.

[skydoc_17]

Hey Oz,

Thanks for the tip, actually, I plan on replacing the steel sleeves and the Delrin bushings with a set of self lubing, bronze bushings that should tighten up the swing arm really nice as well as make it maintainance free. I'll post again when I get the bronze bushings finished.

Earl

[footsie]

I still think the problems a few of yall are having is the radial on the rear and the bias ply on the frount, I am running 36 psi in the kumho and the same in the avon cobra on the frount, I don't have any of the issues described now, did have some with the bias bridgestone on frount. I rode 1000 miles saturday in all conditions no problems.

And I am a very aggressive rider.

Question to those having problems, what tire do you have on frount.

 

Gregg

[Kregerdoodle]

I a running a Avon Venom on the front, After speaking with Ponch and Gunboat, ( they both rode my bike ) Ponch got on it and leaned it way over so that I could see how much of the rear tire was on the ground while I was passing that car, he is thinking that while I was passing and leaned over pretty good and shifted gears in the middle on the lean, that what happened was that I probably broke the tire loose, makes sense after seeing how little rubber is on the road in a lean. They both said that after riding it and being pretty agressive, that it rides rock solid. as far as the "clunk" sound goes, they couldn`t hear it... so maybe its the marbles in my head rattling around that I am hearing??

 

I don`t know.. I am going to bleed my brakes this Sat. just cause they need it, and who knows that might take care of my noise... oh ya, and Janet just informed me that I am painting the porch deck also:( Did I mention that I have a whole lot of brushes??

[Ponch]

Now Kreg, You don't got time for no stinkin' Honey doooo's.

You got some ridin to do. I should talk, I have a month of Honey Do's to catch up on. Oy!

I think the noise you were hearing was slack in the rear brake pads, but for the life of me, I don't see how it could've had any. The disc doesn't appear to be warped and everything looks lined up pretty well.

It seemed to handle very well for me (considering the car tire).

[footsie]

The Venom is not a radial, is it? That why I ordered the Cobra, If you running a Venom X its bias ply, I did not see a venom R when I ordered the Cobra.

 

Gregg

[gunboat]

hi greg

yep the venom is a bais front tire. but i don't belive that the issuse. i ran a me880 on the front for 22,000 miles on my bike with a bfg on the rear. it had over 31,000 miles on it.

don c.

[flb_78]

It's about time for me to return to the darkside. My free Dunlop E3 is getting thin.

[crockettrider]

I have a situation that is confusing me.

While I sit here waiting for the phone company i decided to pick your brains before i go down to look more closely.

 

My 99 Venture was up on my lift. I did a series of maintenance issues and replaced the front and rear tires with a Kumho and Avon Cobra front.

I had the steering head bearing replaced 200 miles ago.

 

After the tire change I noticed what appears to be a side to side wobble at the front. It is most noticeable at the 22 mph range. It totally disappears at higher speeds all the way to 90 mph (speedo).

 

I plan on checking the steering head bearing and looking at the tire more closely. It was balanced but the rear was not. I ride 2 up and the wife even noticed it. It also seems more prevalent at slow speeds and slow speed cornering (parking lot).

 

It did appear at the same time as the tire change so that confuses me on the bearings? It is also the stock tire where I was riding on the slimmer tire (Venom) before.

 

Suggestions welcome!

[Kregerdoodle]

Did you change the tire or a shop?? Make sure the spacers are both in place, and they should be reinstalled on the same side they came out of....

 

 

 

 

 

I have a situation that is confusing me.

While I sit here waiting for the phone company i decided to pick your brains before i go down to look more closely.

 

My 99 Venture was up on my lift. I did a series of maintenance issues and replaced the front and rear tires with a Kumho and Avon Cobra front.

I had the steering head bearing replaced 200 miles ago.

 

After the tire change I noticed what appears to be a side to side wobble at the front. It is most noticeable at the 22 mph range. It totally disappears at higher speeds all the way to 90 mph (speedo).

 

I plan on checking the steering head bearing and looking at the tire more closely. It was balanced but the rear was not. I ride 2 up and the wife even noticed it. It also seems more prevalent at slow speeds and slow speed cornering (parking lot).

 

It did appear at the same time as the tire change so that confuses me on the bearings? It is also the stock tire where I was riding on the slimmer tire (Venom) before.

 

Suggestions welcome!