chrome wheels

[devonrs]

i just bought the chrome wheels for my girlfriend's scoot (okay, correction, SHE just bought them... whatever, i'm the free mechanic)

has no one else bought em yet??

[Spanky]

No, but i've been seriously considering it. You must tell us what the quality of the tires is and how it feels, etc. I want them.

[XPS1210]

chreaus has and he loves em... however he hasn't been on a whole lot in the past month or so... something about college being a priority to the scooter... go figure!

[hybridrazz]

He sent me a picture of them before they looked really good on his vino.

[devonrs]

Okay, so i just installed them the other day and took the vino for a short ride, got about 50 feet when i realized something was wrong... felt wobbly, like the wheels weren't in right, though i just took the old ones off and put the new ones on the exact same way, the bolts are super tight, not sure what i did wrong... also, it feels like the brakes are engaged, though they're not, but just pushing the bike you can feel the resistance... what went wrong here?

thanks in advance...

[XPS1210]

you must have something not sitting correct... as far as I've heard... they are a direct replacement...

might have damaged the brake pads... might double check.. if one is broken it will drag on the wheel...

[Lennox]

front or back?
did you switch over the spacer on the front........wait nevermind, I don't know if that applies? My brain is in Zuma mode.......

[mybloody2005]

i was just about to order the chrome rims/wheels. hopefully this is just an instance of an installation problem and not faulty axles/hub or something like that...

[XPS1210]

http://www.provoscooter.com/vbull/showthread.php?p=19031#post19031 is a good explanation of why your wheels don't work...

your scooter probably needs other parts replaced for your accident... bent axle, fork, etc...

[mybloody2005]

ah, makes sense...

[devonrs]

i don't think that's it... not sure how i would check, cause i assume it could be not too obvious? anyway, she's driven it since the crash, on the old wheels, and it was fine... so i'm guessing it's the something not sitting right, i'll take em off and on again today and see what i can see...

[devonrs]

Okay, it's the rear wheel that's sticking... i pulled it off, and first of all, the tire is flat! wtf?? i just got them, full of air and ready to go, i put em on, i drove it like 100 feet around the front of my house, realized something felt wrong, put it back in my driveway, and now the rear tire is flat!

anyway, i put the old rear wheel on and it spins with some resistance too... i'm guessing there is supposed to be more resistance on the rear wheel (felt when spinning it by hand) than the front wheel, due to the rear wheel being the drive wheel? so maybe this is normal? i don't know how much resistance there's supposed to be, i'll compare it to my vino when i get it back tonight from a friends house and see... other than that, i don't know what else to do... could it be anything other than the rear brake causing the resistance?

[Aviatrixie]

I'm totally shooting in the dark here, but...

There should be no resistance to the wheel turning. Any resistance means friction and that means heat. Heat means something will fail soon.

You need to figure out what is causing the drag.

[Lennox]

try loosening the brake cable a bit.....

[devonrs]

okay, it was the brake cable, weird, as the brake lever wasn't too tight at all, but when i loosened the cable a lot, the resistance was gone, but now the brake lever is too loose... is the cable sticking somewhere or something? how do i diagnose/fix this?

[XPS1210]

shoot wd-30 into it... or pull the cable out of the tube and grease it and replace...