Sorry it has been some time since I have made a post. There has been a lot of things going on at our household. Every weekend has been tied up solid.
I have done a ton of things to the bike, but unfortunately I did not take photos so I cannot write a tutorial. My new friend and I installed the Darkside tires on the Wing, they were on for about 250-300 miles then removed.
The Darkside set up just was not for me. The rear tire gripped so firmly that the front tire seemed to always be searching for a track when riding on any paved surface with a defect. This caused the handlebars to wobble slightly. Having a loaded trailer seemed to amplify the wobble. I was not willing to put up with the wobbling for a ride that will be well over 9000 miles, so I installed a set of new E3 tires on the Wing and it is back to normal.
When I removed the Taxi tire from the rear, here is what I saw:
The tire was rubbing against the front section of the rear tire. It also was rubbing the top of the rear fender. It actually wore a hole in the front section of the rear fender. There were times when I was riding that I would smell a slight whiff of burning plastic, but I could never isolate it and thought it must have been a passing car or something. It was me!!
I'm glad this was corrected before leaving for Alaska. The Darkside was an interesting experiment. I'm glad I tried it, but it simply was not for me.
The other things that were done to the bike were as follows:
- New rear rotor installed
- Greased all splines with Molly paste
- Inspected the U joint
- Replaced the U joint boot (it had a hole in it)
- Re-torqued the swing arm
- Checked the wheel bearings
- Replaced the air shock boot
- New brake pads all around
- Repaired some wiring
- Replaced the rear wheel dampeners, they were totally shot
Talk to you soon,
Ed
I was wondering how you would like the darkside ride. People on the forum swear by it but I think if Honda wanted people to run car tires on there rides they would have put on a car tire from the factory! I run E3's on my 98 SE and love them.
ReplyDeleteIt really changed the handling of my bike. I had a few folks tell me that the tire would behave like I describe until it was worn in a little. Perhaps with a little more time it may have been OK; however, the first time I took it on a concrete highway I knew I was going back to E3's immediately. The bike was so wobbly that the fun was sucked right out of the ride.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised as all get out when I removed the rear tire and found what it did to the rear fender.
In the end, I am glad I tried it. From here on out, no more darkside for me. I'll stick with the E3's.