I've heard it described several times. I want to go ahead and do it to get some width in front without spending $400. But, apparently I haven't listened close enough when told about the problem of the valve stem hitting the caliper and what to do about it. Any detailed desciption of what to do would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Karl

 

Turn the old valve assembly outside in (valve stem inside rim) and on the other side of the rim approxamatly 180degrees from the old valve stem drill a 3/8" hole and install a new valve stem

 

Thanks, 'head. Pretty simple. How durable is this setup?

 

It's allright, but your quad won't handle quite as good after you do that... At least mine didn't - the guy who had my old 250X had the wheels flipped around, but it didn't handle as good as my 300EX did with the wheels like they are supposed to be. I had nothing to do with the width of the frontend either because I ended up putting wider a-arms on my 300EX and it handled the same as far as steering goes but was a lot more stable and wasn't as harsh on jumps either.

 

My bro did it on his 400ex and its pretty much the same handling, nothing changed. the only difference is that the caliper is exposed, other than that its pretty reliable

 

Well my 250X was a 1987, so the ball joints might have been going bad... But like you said, the rotor is more exposed and I think that the flipped wheels puts more stress on suspension parts - just like they do on a car.....

 

Dirt girl is right, the handling will be altered because the weight is not over the ball joints. Flipping the rims will cause a push in the front end while going threw turns. CrAcKhEaD just might have been on loose dirt and did not notice plus girls notice detail better than guys. Want more proof look at Roll & walsh and figure out why they run 1-4 off set wheels.

 

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I don't notice the push, but having the wheel centre outside the pivot point means when you hit something like roots or rocks on edge of trail, the bars get wrenched around pretty good. It also works the shocks a lot harder. I like it for MX, but I flip them back to stock width for woods. a +2 a-arm is light years better than flipping wheels, but then you're pretty wide for tight woods.

Rod

2002 400EX

 

I flipped the front wheels around on my Dale and it made the bumpsteer a lot worse, but the added stability in turns makes up for it, IMO. I would rather have wider +3 a-arms but I can't afford that (which is why I"m selling my quad... it's to expensive to set up a quad for MX). It has held up just fine though... never had any problems w/ bending or anything like that.

Just one thing... Like CrAcKhEaD said, just turn the original valve stem outside in. But when you drill the new hole, make sure the stems are on apposite sides. So if you're standing the wheel up, and the original valve stem is at the bottom of the wheel, drill the new hole on the top of the opposite side.