Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! 
Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to As I've just finished up installing and testing my new Tubliss setup, I thought I'd give some info for folks like me that might be apprehensive to take on installing this due to lack of experience.
Before this project, I'd never changed a motorcycle tire or really any kind of tire. I got a pair of tire irons and a bottle of slime from Amazon along with the Tubliss kits for front/rear. "How hard could it be?" I thought. The answer is, pretty hard.
First step was getting the rear wheel off. Since I had no bike lift and only a floor jack and two jack stands, this was not exactly easy. I did get the rear swing arm up on the stands with the help of my wife. I spent the next 2 hours trying to figure out how to get the original tire off and chewed it up pretty bad with the irons. No matter, that tire is going to be trashed anyway. I brought the rim into my living room to work on and the fun began.
The Tubliss liner and inner tube went in with relative ease. This did require that I drill out the second hole in the rim to use for the rim lock/second valve stem. I used an Armor-All-like product to lubricate the entire tube and liner assembly. This made it much easier to get the liner and tube lined up properly with the holes in the rim. I would recommend cleaning the rim before applying the required rim tape to ensure it will stick well. With all this done, I carefully spooned the Tubliss system into place without too much resistance.
Next was putting the tire on. I followed the instructions and got the tire inside the rim. This part was easy.
The first bead was fairly easy to spoon over the rim. The second one was nearly impossible with my experience level. Below picture is of the front tire but I had the same problem with both. The last 10-12 inches of bead are hard to get over the edge of the rim. I was afraid I was going to damage the brand new tire. I eventually got the whole bead on by heating the tire with a combination of sun and a hair dryer. Aside from that I realized it's much easier to keep the bead from slipping back off if you put your knee on the tire firmly where you last spooned on the bead. Getting the bead on the opposite side into the drop center of the rim is difficult with the Tubliss liner in place but it's possible and does help.
Now the tire was finally on the rim but I had another problem. The bead was not sitting evenly in the rim all the way around. I'm unsure if this was due to my heating/stretching of the tire or it's just a fact of life, but it was concerning. I emailed Jeff with Nuetech about the issue and he advised I air up the tire fully in both chambers and leave it. Sure enough, a few minutes later I noticed the bead evening and it was completely normal about an hour later. I thought it would make the issue worse to air up the inner liner all the way but it did fix it. I believe adding in the Slime sealant did help lubricate and seal the whole setup. I put the recommended 8oz. First tire on! And it only took 4 hours...
I wasn't done with that wheel yet though. Because of the rim lock, I knew I'd need some wheel weights to ride at highway speeds. I got a pack of stick-on 1/4 oz wheel weights. If you know how much rim locks weigh, you'll know where this is going.
A homemade balancer and 22 wheel weights later, I was ready to put the wheel back on the bike. I was concerned that the Slime I had added would throw off the balancing but I later found out that the slime pretty evenly coats the inner tire surface and therefore didn't cause an issue. Rode it around a bit an everything was fine.
Sadly, the front didn't go as well. I got it all together but something went wrong and the inner tube would not hold air. I begrudgingly took it back off the rim and found the inner tube was popped at the valve stem. Either I didn't clean the wheel well enough or the liner was twisted up when I aired it up. You can see the damaged tape job. I'm thinking this resulted from the twisted up tube suddenly untwisting.
After this setback, I contacted Jeff at Nuetech again and he was awesome about helping me out. He promptly sent out replacement parts for me free of charge. One of the perks of dealing with a US-based business. I'll also say, his response time is fantastic and I even had communication on nights/weekends.
With the new tube in place and a lot of elbow grease applied, I only needed to balance. This was a problem because the stick on weights did not fit on the front rim. There was no flat spot to stick them to. I ordered reusable spoke weights and got it set up on the front. I also redid the rear weights because I was afraid of the stick-ons becoming projectiles. The new weights look kind of ridiculous because it requires a lot, but I've tested the bike up to 80mph and it's very smooth so I think it's balanced right. The front one already had two weights on the rim that I left because I wouldn't have quite enough otherwise.
In summary: Don't expect this to be easy if you've never done your own tires before. With that being said, my final remove/replace tire took less than an hour once I was familiar with the process. I'm really impressed with the service of Nuetech and I think the product and instructions are good. This is possible to do with only basic tools and limited experience.
Up next: My buddy has the same bike and identical tires, but with a standard tube setup. We'll be doing some riding soon and will be swapping bikes along the way to see what kind of difference it really makes getting down to 5-10 PSI.
Any questions, feel free to ask.
Before this project, I'd never changed a motorcycle tire or really any kind of tire. I got a pair of tire irons and a bottle of slime from Amazon along with the Tubliss kits for front/rear. "How hard could it be?" I thought. The answer is, pretty hard.
First step was getting the rear wheel off. Since I had no bike lift and only a floor jack and two jack stands, this was not exactly easy. I did get the rear swing arm up on the stands with the help of my wife. I spent the next 2 hours trying to figure out how to get the original tire off and chewed it up pretty bad with the irons. No matter, that tire is going to be trashed anyway. I brought the rim into my living room to work on and the fun began.
The Tubliss liner and inner tube went in with relative ease. This did require that I drill out the second hole in the rim to use for the rim lock/second valve stem. I used an Armor-All-like product to lubricate the entire tube and liner assembly. This made it much easier to get the liner and tube lined up properly with the holes in the rim. I would recommend cleaning the rim before applying the required rim tape to ensure it will stick well. With all this done, I carefully spooned the Tubliss system into place without too much resistance.
Next was putting the tire on. I followed the instructions and got the tire inside the rim. This part was easy.
The first bead was fairly easy to spoon over the rim. The second one was nearly impossible with my experience level. Below picture is of the front tire but I had the same problem with both. The last 10-12 inches of bead are hard to get over the edge of the rim. I was afraid I was going to damage the brand new tire. I eventually got the whole bead on by heating the tire with a combination of sun and a hair dryer. Aside from that I realized it's much easier to keep the bead from slipping back off if you put your knee on the tire firmly where you last spooned on the bead. Getting the bead on the opposite side into the drop center of the rim is difficult with the Tubliss liner in place but it's possible and does help.
Now the tire was finally on the rim but I had another problem. The bead was not sitting evenly in the rim all the way around. I'm unsure if this was due to my heating/stretching of the tire or it's just a fact of life, but it was concerning. I emailed Jeff with Nuetech about the issue and he advised I air up the tire fully in both chambers and leave it. Sure enough, a few minutes later I noticed the bead evening and it was completely normal about an hour later. I thought it would make the issue worse to air up the inner liner all the way but it did fix it. I believe adding in the Slime sealant did help lubricate and seal the whole setup. I put the recommended 8oz. First tire on! And it only took 4 hours...
I wasn't done with that wheel yet though. Because of the rim lock, I knew I'd need some wheel weights to ride at highway speeds. I got a pack of stick-on 1/4 oz wheel weights. If you know how much rim locks weigh, you'll know where this is going.
A homemade balancer and 22 wheel weights later, I was ready to put the wheel back on the bike. I was concerned that the Slime I had added would throw off the balancing but I later found out that the slime pretty evenly coats the inner tire surface and therefore didn't cause an issue. Rode it around a bit an everything was fine.
Sadly, the front didn't go as well. I got it all together but something went wrong and the inner tube would not hold air. I begrudgingly took it back off the rim and found the inner tube was popped at the valve stem. Either I didn't clean the wheel well enough or the liner was twisted up when I aired it up. You can see the damaged tape job. I'm thinking this resulted from the twisted up tube suddenly untwisting.
After this setback, I contacted Jeff at Nuetech again and he was awesome about helping me out. He promptly sent out replacement parts for me free of charge. One of the perks of dealing with a US-based business. I'll also say, his response time is fantastic and I even had communication on nights/weekends.
With the new tube in place and a lot of elbow grease applied, I only needed to balance. This was a problem because the stick on weights did not fit on the front rim. There was no flat spot to stick them to. I ordered reusable spoke weights and got it set up on the front. I also redid the rear weights because I was afraid of the stick-ons becoming projectiles. The new weights look kind of ridiculous because it requires a lot, but I've tested the bike up to 80mph and it's very smooth so I think it's balanced right. The front one already had two weights on the rim that I left because I wouldn't have quite enough otherwise.
In summary: Don't expect this to be easy if you've never done your own tires before. With that being said, my final remove/replace tire took less than an hour once I was familiar with the process. I'm really impressed with the service of Nuetech and I think the product and instructions are good. This is possible to do with only basic tools and limited experience.
Up next: My buddy has the same bike and identical tires, but with a standard tube setup. We'll be doing some riding soon and will be swapping bikes along the way to see what kind of difference it really makes getting down to 5-10 PSI.
Any questions, feel free to ask.
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