Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

aubeasty wrote: 3) I have seen someone strip down an air compressor to it's basic essentials and he has it under the seat for such emergencies (yes, powered off the 12V cig lighter socket he has installed)

That would be me
Heres my rant It works, and lets you adjust pressures if you feel the need (eg when touring drop for twisties and go back up for freeway if you want to save tyre wear)



Saw a little 12v air pump at BigW for $10.90 so I grabbed it because my foot pump got crushed, by my foot

Got it home and straight away pulled it out of its case (which is shaped to look like a fancy air compressor with cooling fins and stuff) because I knew it would be 50% air inside.

So the actual compressor is 1/3rd the size of the case thumbs up

Made a little metal bracket to protect the exposed mecahnisims and it fits easy into a corner of the tail

It works fine, gets hot and is noisy (like as noisy as the ZZR Shocked ) Gave it a grease up, because it had none and straight away it ran about twice as fast and half as loud (what do you expect for $10, with the price of oil these days grease must be too expensive).

So for the space it takes up (not much more than the canisters for the puncture repair kit) I think its a good deal.
Takes a while to pump up but good enough.
Can drop tyre pressures for twisties then go to 40+ psi for a long highway stretch when touring.

Much cheaper than those stupid repair kits, which I have decided are sh*t after trying to use the thing in my garage when I had a flat in the morning.
I think the $5 repair kit that was next to the pump would be better, though a little bulkier because its tools have proper handles you can get some leverage with (which you need to pust the stupid plugs in).

So if your thinking of a repair kit I sugest BigW pump and kit combo for $16 (+30 min repackaging, and a lighter socket makes life easier then taking the seat off to access the battey) rather than a stuipid $40 single use motorbike kit.
Pump also lets you get home on a slow leak with multiple refills, where canisters will get you single use only.

jmuzz wrote:

aubeasty wrote: 3) I have seen someone strip down an air compressor to it's basic essentials and he has it under the seat for such emergencies (yes, powered off the 12V cig lighter socket he has installed)

That would be me
Heres my rant It works, and lets you adjust pressures if you feel the need (eg when touring drop for twisties and go back up for freeway if you want to save tyre wear)

jmuzz, I'm both sad & happy at the same time - as it's NOT you that I knew who did this (the sad bit), but the Happy bit is that you've provided the instructions on how to do it!!! The only diff is that this other setup didn't have the dial on it anymore, as the dude used his own separate pressure checker....

But hey, you've posted it for the world to see so maybe a few will try it out (me included)

I was thinking of doing something like that but there's not enough space under my seat!

Pontikat wrote:Yep work a treat i found the Secret is too make the Hole NICE & big before you feed the rubber Strip into the tyre.
Everyone should have one Especially if you like Pilot Powers Rears on a Litre bike

Never had a puncture on a power in over 60,000 kms where do you get this information from?
Have you ever had a power on a bike you own?
Just trying to get to the bottom of why you keep saying powers are more puncture prone than other tyres!

Neil

Glen wrote:That'd be a tubeless repair kit

Great little things and I keep one under my seat. Get yourself some CO2 bottles and you can pump the bugger up when your in the middle of nowhere with no servo around. Mine got me out of shit once and I reckon that's good enough.


Cheers

yep, expecially on the (insert secret squirrel rd here) in the dirt section.....middle of nowhere.

RG wrote:I use this, complete set.

I bet you have never used this kit

if you did you would find those dounuts are useless with that tool , they rip in half when trying to insert them

the correct tool stretches those things right out so you can insert them

get yourself the rope piece before you are stuck out the back of no where with a flat tyre

aubeasty wrote:The only diff is that this other setup didn't have the dial on it anymore, as the dude used his own separate pressure checker....

But hey, you've posted it for the world to see so maybe a few will try it out (me included)

I was going to remove the dial because it drops 1/3rd off the size. But it fit anyway so Ive just left it. Easier to know when its done anyway (the dial reads about 4psi higher then my digital gauge too, though it does loose a little pressure when disconnecting)

Johnnie5 wrote:I bet you have never used this kit

if you did you would find those dounuts are useless with that tool , they rip in half when trying to insert them

the correct tool stretches those things right out so you can insert them

get yourself the rope piece before you are stuck out the back of no where with a flat tyre

Yes I have used them and you are right, they do rip in half, but the second one was allright after getting the right feel with the first one.

rocketrod wrote:Lets see ya little repair kit fix this............
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b30/r ... G_2960.jpg

It only works on tubeless tyres


I just grabbed this:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... %3AIT&rd=1

It's a compressor with a torch, should be pretty independent now. I was thinking about the compressor with the jump starter but i thought the torch would be more handy if i get a puncture at night. A motorbike can usually be push started and the compressors with the jump starter are larger and heavy.. I could buy the torch/compressor cheaper separately I guess but this seems more convenient.


my only problem would be if i get a flat battery AND a puncture, but I'm not to sure of the likelihood of that happening (just run the compressor when the bike is on...) what is the output wattage of a zx9r alternator anyway?

I'd probably only bring the touch/compressor if I'm going out of Melbourne or on long trips, and that's what the bag rack is for.

Seems like a good idea to strip the compressors to save room and store it on the bike as its not that heavy though...

I guess its not very often you get punctures in the middle of nowhere, but I've already had three in under 2 years of riding. Even though that last one was in a small city it was so hard to get back on the road,
I could hardly travel a few kay without it going down.

EBay total of worry free puncture repair:

12 dollars for puncture patches and tools.
16 dollars for compressor and torch.

under 30 bux... you only need to have 1 puncture repaired professionally before its more convenient to DIY.
Also the good thing about doing it this way with the compressor is you can have a fair few punctures before you have to buy another item (more compressed gas). Its good for cars, bikes, to help mates out and even camping.

try these inflator out very powerful and small good quality avail repco for und $50 not sure on price for kit or string kit.
http://www.slime.com/moto/index.php

thanks for posting those scanned instructions!

invaluable... the engrish instructions written on the cigarette paper that came with my kit made no sense at all.

Billy, remember how I told you my tyre had 11psi in ? well now we know why!

Couple of things to remember with these kits.

1. Don't be frightened to enlarge the hole before inserting the patch and use sh*t loads of the glue in the hole first, on the patch too (acts as a lubricant for the plug to slide in )

2. Keep your gloves ON if using the CO2 canisters........the little buggers don't half get cold

3. They are for "emergency" use..... hence check your tyre pressures at the next available servo

Funnily enough I got to use mine for the first time today. Somewhere on the trip I managed to pick up two little nails in my rear tyre. One came out OK at Tintaldra, but I missed the other until the bike got a tub today.

I figured it was the perfect opportunity to have a practice go at using it in the luxury of my garage instead of the side of the road, particularly because the tyre only has about another 1,000km left in it anyway.

I'll agree with most of what has been said above. Make the hole big, put lots of glue in to lube it, don't let too much air out or the tyre will just push in.

It helped having the compressor in the garage to pump it up though

repco sell the same kit as a 4x4 tire rpair kit for 20 bux with about 15 strips in it, i left the nails in my tires for a while but when i got around to fixing them it took about 10 minutes to do 2 nails.

dont leave home without it.

the shop i went into today had this idea......they were selling liquid latex in a bottle with a valve attachment



the idea was that you fill your tyre up with the liquid latex and it seals in a matter of minutes.

250ml bottle $23



i played with the liquid and it skinned in a matter of seconds if not minutes


still though you have to get air into the tyre.......i like the little air compressor idea.....bike biz have a MCS handpump with a co2 bottle fitting for attaching bottles to it......has anyone seen it. i seen one today and its about 6-7inches and is a little bike pump but man you would have to pump that thing for ages to get somewhere...does anyone have one?