goldwingdocs.com

Hi everyone, first post here, must say awesome source of information here, and a great community.

I have question for the people out there running the Avon Cobra Chrome AV92 tires. What is the rear tire clearance like on the right hand swingarm of the Goldwing 1500? (Could you possibly post pics?)

Reason I ask is, I purchased as set of Cobra Chrome tires for my Goldwing in factory size (R 160/80-16, F 130/70-18) the front is absolutely fine, the rear on the other hand is rubbing the rear swing arm on the right (driveshaft side) pretty significantly, the gap on the other side between swingarm and tire is approx. 3/4 of an inch. Also wondering if it naturally a little close or is there a good gap on both sides?

I will add that while replacing the tire I also replaced the rear wheel bearings for good measure while I was in there. I've done many wheel bearings in my time and are certain they are full seated and square.

I am leaning towards a defective tire but want see what the community opinion was, I will include a link to some pictures so you can see what I am saying. If you look at the two pictures from the rear of the bike, you will see that it appears the side of the tire bulges out on the right side more the on the left, kind of roundish on the right side, more of a sharp downward angle on the left. The other picture is from underneath where the tire is rubbing the swingarm.

Thanks in advance for you time.

https://imgur.com/a/RTcIdIb

Measure the distance from the rim to the swingarm on each side. That will tell you if the rim isn't centered or if it's just the tire that isn't centered. Also you can look at the guide line on the tire where it meets the rim to see that it is mounted properly.

I checked the distance between the swing arms, and honestly I did not trust the numbers as the rear swing arm is asymmetrical. So I decided to compare it to my buddies '95 1500 as far as we can see, they are nearly identical, maybe 2 or 3mm difference between the two. We next decided to pull his rear wheel, remove the brake rotor off both wheels, and lay both rear wheels side by side rotor mounting side down, then we took measurements from the concrete floor to various parts of the wheel to check offset, hub spacing, overall hub width, rim offset, rim width etc. Every measurement came back identical. I am pretty confident we can rule out the wheel or how it sits in the swingarm as the issue.

While we were in the process of doing this we did notice the tire in question isn't really offset as much to one side as it would appear in the pictures, but it is way wider then the Dunlop E3 my buddy is rockin' in the neighborhood of 1.5 or 40mm. I have read else where that Avon tires do run wide, but this tire seems to measure closer to a 195 width than a 160. Any thoughts?

Thanks -Solopilot

Plenty of people run that tire. So maybe you got a bad one? Hard to understand how as the size is machined right into the mold, so a wrong mold or mislabel would be easy to catch. Out of curiosity what pressure are you running?
When compared to you buddies, how was the tire width compared to the rim on each side. Symmetrical on both tires?

Ya, I do not understand how the molded size on the side wall could be wrong, but it seems to be. For pressure I was running 42psi. Compared to my buddies rear tire my tire did appear to be more symmetrical than it looked in the pics, a little hard to tell as the side wall is shaven down a little on my tire.

Thanks -Solopilot