My front inner tube popped yesterday so I changed it, but when I put the wheel back on the bike I couldn't seem to tighten it properly without it being too tight, or not tight enough.
If it was too tight, the disc brake would be rubbing and I couldn't pedal without extreme resistance. If it was too loose, I run the risk of it falling off.
I know theres a way to put the bike back together obviously cause I've been riding it for a while now. Any advice?
Your problem is more likely to be wheel alignment than anything being too tight. The tops of the dropout (with the bike upright) should be sitting on the axle, but it's easy to get a little gap there if you're not careful. When that happens the wheel doesn't sit quite stright in the fork and it will rub on the disk rotor if you have disks. Plus if you're finding that you have to wind the quick release in and out it may be riding up on the wheel retention tabs (lawyer lips). Front dropouts are shown in the lawyer lips link.
The system I use is this:
The idea is that because the bike is pushing down on the wheel it will seat properly in the dropouts. Trying to do that while the bike is upside down or you're trying to hold it upright often means one side of the axle is not properly in the dropout, so the wheel sits at an angle when you do up the quick release.
This is not a problem of a too tight skewer. The skewer should be tight to hold the wheel in place as riding on a loose skewer is dangerous.
If the brake does not rub with the skewer loosened then it also won't with the skewer tightened when the wheel was properly seated. You must have tightened the skewer with the wheel not properly seated.
To fix it, just loosen the skewer, put even weight on the bike and hold the weight while tightening the skewer.
