yellow dot on new the tires

Align it with the valve stem👍

ahmad_vstrom_1000_2014 said:

How do I find what side is forward on the tire ?

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Should be an arrow on the sidewall showing direction of rotation.

ERS said:

Should be an arrow on the sidewall showing direction of rotation.

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Yes. And pattern is kinda telling.. it only make sense in one direction.

In my experience, tire pattern can be deceiving on some tires. Look for an arrow, and check it twice. Ask my why I say check it twice...

Front tire tread pattern in most instances will look backwards when mounted properly. I always sharpie marker and arrow on the brake dics before I remove the old tire. Then match the directional arrow to the arrow on the disc. It gets easy to get wheel direction after you flip the wheel over a time or two on the tire machine,

PerazziMx14 said:

Front tire tread pattern in most instances will look backwards when mounted properly. I always sharpie marker and arrow on the brake dics before I remove the old tire. Then match the directional arrow to the arrow on the disc. It gets easy to get wheel direction after you flip the wheel over a time or two on the tire machine,

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I used to do that out of habit. Until I realized my wheels only can go on the bike one way.

I put a little paper tag on the brake discs to indicate Left and Right

STCorndog said:

I used to do that out of habit. Until I realized my wheels only can go on the bike one way.

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Yep, but you can install the tire either way. Sure, does suck when go through the process of mounting a new tire then put the wheel back on the bike and realize the tires is on backwards. Been there done that.

If my wheel only goes on one way, I don’t need to mark a disc.

Philbytx said:

Align it with the valve stem👍

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Yall are free ta dismiss my following remarks if ya want...but....

After a tire balance problem I had on the front tire of an FJR years ago....I took the tire back to my friends cycle biz. My friend contacted the distributor Tucker Rocky who then contacted Bridgestone.
A letter from Brdgstne was fwded back to us stating.....
The tires have a dot on the sidewall indicating the light spot on the tire. It is to be alighned with the corresponding heavy spot on the rim.

Since that time I have always checked the balance of the wheel itself on the first tire change after getting a bike. I have found that less weights are needed to balance when aligning the light/heavy spots. Sometimes even no weights!
Now....alot of the time...the wheels heavy spot is at or near the valve stem.....
But on that FJR front wheel we had problems with.....the wheelheavy spot was almost opposite of valve stem & we checked the wheel thouroughly for rock/tar or any other debris stuck to it.

Of course, there are always exceptions

Tighten the other bolt slightly to hopefully take a bit of pressure off the rounded fastener. Then try your screwdriver again. I highly doubt the amount of over torque caused the fastener to round. as these do not take a lot of torque before you something bad with the aluminum happens. Are you sure you had the right socket? Was the socket worn or all gunked up?

PerazziMx14 said:

Tighten the other bolt slightly to hopefully take a bit of pressure off the rounded fastener. Then try your screwdriver again. I highly doubt the amount of over torque caused the fastener to round. as these do not take a lot of torque before you something bad with the aluminum happens. Are you sure you had the right socket? Was the socket worn or all gunked up?

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Probably all of the above. I lost my real 10mm socket while fixing wife's car. I stupidly picked a socket from a pile of old sockets..which held the bolt... did not even check the size and use impact wrench.. 3 bolts came off.... hmm.. I am not sure I might have ran impact in tight direction.

I will try to tighten the adjacent bolt.

Hide your impact wrench from yourself. They have application, but it’s not for routine work like your doing.

You’ll thank me later.

6 point socket was the way To Go. I only use 12 points on a12 point bolt head. As st corn dog said,use your hand tools to develop a feel for things.

Front/rear usually have opposing tread patterns. The rim should also have a directional arrow, which I mark with chalk to make it more obvious.

I have an automatic tire machine so I have a lot of "friends" who come over to get their tires changed. One day my buddy brings his Vstrom front wheel and a fresh tire over. I removed the old tire, noted tread direction of old tire, plopped the new tire on the rim, mounted it, seated the bead and aired it up. As I was popping open the beer he brought over, I got to thinking that something doesn't look right. I examined the wheel and the tire, worked it out in my head that everything was correct but it didn't look right. I went over to my Vstrom front tire and did the same thing. Mother trucker, my tire was mounted ass backwards. The tire had thousands of miles on it. Glad it was summer and I hadn't ridden in the rain. It doesn't rain much in the summer here in N. California.

STCorndog said:

If my wheel only goes on one way, I don’t need to mark a disc.

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Marking the disc helps to remind you which direction to mount the tire. See my post above.