KingSong KS16S Inner Tube Change (Maintenance Mondays #1)

My leg support pad is missing so we get straight into undoing the screws. There are 6 big screws on each side of the unicycle, underneath the pads. First we remove the screws but be careful where you put them so you don’t lose them, here I’m using a magnetic tray. 

Get your 16inch Inner Tube here!

After we remove the screws we turn the wheel on the other side and we remove the pad. If you start pulling from all sides you slowly peel it off and it comes out pretty easily. If your pad is stuck you can use a heat gun to heat up the glue underneath. 

I removed the LED strip on this side but I actually didn’t need to do that because as later on you will see the motor cables are only on one side of the axel and I that’s the other side. 

Anyway let’s remove the 6 screws from under the pad.

Now when it comes to removing the LED plastic cover, it’s best if you use a plastic prying tool but if you don’t have one you can wrap electrical tape around a flathead screwdriver which would cover the metal bit and when you pry open the cover you don’t damage the pins. Then you can just use your hands to remove the plastic cover.

There are 9 plus 4 screws holding the side panel.

 9 screw are around LED strip area, there is actually 1 screw missing and also one of the screws is broken after my accident.  

There are 4 screws around the pad area which we also remove.

When all of the screws are gone then we can gently lift up the side panel, and gently is a keyword because the light strips and the speakers are attached via cables so if we aren’t careful we will tear the cables. 

We reach under the panel to unpin the connectors and then finally we can remove the side shell which reveals a battery and the motor cables. 

We unplug the power cable and it’s a good to put electrical tape over the connectors so we isolate them and no damage could be done. 

Also a little tip, disconnect the battery from the board and press on the power button to drain the capacitors so the board doesn’t hold any voltage. This will prevent shortage that could damage the components.

Apart from the power cable, there’s another cable which we also need to unplug.  Once these 2 cables are disconnected then we can gently pull up the shell and expose the motor. 

Once we have the motor separated then we use levers to lift the tire up from the rim.  

Once we have have one side loose then we can reach underneath and take the inner tube out. Best is to push the valve in so you can get it out of the metal rim and then just go around the wheel and pull out the inner tube.

What I’m doing next might no apply to your machine but I had some exposed wires so I went around each wire and wrapped in electrical tape in order to isolate them because if the exposed wires touch then there’ll be a shortage and if I’m riding I’ll most likely injure myself. Safety first guys! 

I’ve used a bit of GT85 spray to clean the frame, also you can use a dry towel to remove any dirt off the rim and inside of the tire. Then I go around the tire to check if there are any thorns or sharp objects inside, because it had a puncture but fortunately there was nothing inside so I spare my fingers from being cut. 

After we’re done with that we put one side of the tire back in and then we push the new inner tube in. Be careful when using the levers because when you want to put the other side of the tire in if you lift up the rubber and you accidentally clip the inner tube as well you can cut it and then you need to start again and get another inner tube. 

Having put the tire back in, I’m all happy but little did I know, I put the valve the wrong way. I put it the same way of the direction of riding which means that when you ride this could cause tension and something can get caught up in the valve damaging it. So I undo the last couple of steps and this time I make sure that I put the valve end opposite to the riding direction. 

Now this done, we just trace back my steps. We gently slide the shell onto the motor. Then we connect the power and sensors cables.

We put the side panel, connecting the 2 light strip cables and the speaker cable. Then we put the screws in and the LED plastic cover. We turn the unicycle on the other side and again put the screws back in. I fix my silly mistake by putting the plastic cover back on and we finish off with the leg support pad. 

Afterwards I pumped the tire to around 55psi (the range is 40 to 65psi) and tested the wheel so it’s all working good. Success!

I hope this blog post will help you when it comes to changing the tire and/or inner tube of your KingSong KS16S.