Puncture fix, recommended

[Guest SimonR]

Hi all,

 

After two punctures in five weeks, about a month ago, I can report on a successful puncture fix that works.

 

My second more recent puncture was a thin piece of wire, about 2-3mm thick, picked up in the rear tyre main tread, causing a 10-15psi loss over about 12hrs. Rather than replace the tyre again (as with my first puncture, below) I thought I'd try a sealant. Some online research led me to "Slime" and with my local bike dealer friend telling me to apply more than the stated one-bottle amount (dose?!), I put into the tyre about a bottle and a half. On re-inflation, the air that could be heard hissing out from the hole in the tyre stopped literally with a "slurp" and within a few hours it has set and had sealed the puncture. Being a cynical type (!), I fully expected the tyre to go down overnight, but 4wks and 1200miles later its sealed for good. Puncture fixed. Slime, Recommended!  It cost about £10 I guess to fit it this way. You can get Slime from bike shops, the online market and the online bookseller. No doubt one or two will say they tried this and it didn't work. All I can say is that with this experience with a 2-3mm rear tyre puncture it worked. And much to my surprise. So I look at it like this: I may have wasted £10 to find the tyre still leaked and needed replacing (my choice), but the gamble worked and saved me packet and a load of trouble. I wouldn’t run it routinely in the tyre personally, as I would like to know when I get a puncture, and then apply it. But some might choose to do that.

 

My other first puncture two weeks earlier was a 5mm nail and, being belt and braces and all that, I replaced the rear tyre: ouch, expensive. I know some will say you can plug or vulcanise such a hole but personally I don't fancy that.

 

Hope this helps anyone that might have a “small” puncture.

 

Cheers - Simon

[Guest Fuzzy]

An option is a product called Ride On which is less messy when changing tire.

[Trev 18,912]

Have used sealant in most of my bikes (a habit from my distinctly amateur, off-roading days) including Slime although never to actually seal a puncture, good to hear it worked so well.

 

Apart from ripping the valve stem out of my RE a few weeks ago (a combination of slightly rusty rim and Indian tube quality), I've not had a puncture in any of my bikes for years now, in fact so long that I can't recall the last. Having said that I still carry a puncture repair kit on longer trips even though I wouldn't be 100% confident about making a repair 

[glencoeman 129]

Just remember that a lot of tyre places wont change a tyre if has got sealants inside, the reason being that the stuff clogs up their tyre changing machines.

[Perthshire 651]

I have a slow puncture or problem on my front tyre as it is losing 3-5 PSI per week.   Nothing obvious.   I have purchased a bottle of Bike Seal after watching the video on their website.  The one of police motorcycles driving over a plank full of nails is what convinced me this is not just about fixing my tyre,  but preventing a potential future wipe out.  I don't see any negative comments on the board,  anyone have any recent experience?

[fj_stuart 4,764]

22 minutes ago, Perthshire said:

I have a slow puncture or problem on my front tyre as it is losing 3-5 PSI per week.   Nothing obvious.   I have purchased a bottle of Bike Seal after watching the video on their website.  The one of police motorcycles driving over a plank full of nails is what convinced me this is not just about fixing my tyre,  but preventing a potential future wipe out.  I don't see any negative comments on the board,  anyone have any recent experience?

 

My experience is that a slow puncture on a tubeless tyre is usually caused by leaking at the rim due to corrosion. I stick it in a barrow full of water to find out. Ideally you should remove the tyre and clean the rim. As a quick fix a can of tyre sealant will work.

 

posting on my blog

[Andy m 23,764]

I'm supposed to sell something similar and wouldn't touch it with a long thing. The salt in it will rot your rims. It prevents anything else sticking, so if you get a nail beyond the 1-2mm it will seal you can't use worms or mushroom plugs. Tyre fitters detest getting sticky **** on their machinery (it's about as water soluble as what came out of the Exxon Valdez) and will make sure you buy a new tyre to cover the hassle even if the old one could be plugged. 

 

Your problem is either the valve which can be fixed properly for about the same price as rim rot goo, the tyre, or the rim itself. If its the rim the goo will initially seal but then harden. When the tyre slips on the dinged rim the hard goo seal will fail and you start again. If its the tyre, finding it from the inside will be easy. With the tyre off cleaning any previous corrosion can be done with sand paper. 

 

If this worked for more than a day or two, don't you suppose every car maker would buy it for 20p a litre and save themselves even making space to carry the silly can of foam most of them go for? 

 

Andy

[embee 7,288]

My Interga had some form of puncture seal added by the original owner (I had the receipt in the paperwork). Both tyres started losing pressure and I found the rims corroded inside, especially at the valve pockets. I had to rub them down and repaint, since which I had no further problems (until an argument with a large piece of wood in the road ………………..).

I know many will report no issues with such products, but not for me thanks.

 

……….. and yes, it is filthy horrid stinky stuff to deal with when you come to replace tyres.

[Wedgepilot 727]

Almost certainly some corrosion inside the rim. A tyre fitter will clean it up properly for not much more than the cost of the gunk.

[DaveM59 1,610]

I have used 'Gloop' sealant for years and although I have heard reports about corroded rims, mine have been fine so I wonder if the corrosion was there first and  selant added to try to stop pressure loss caused by it, then gets blamed for causing it.

Also when I change my tyres there is almost no goop on the rim, it's all around the inside of the tyre and it stays there during removal. So it won't really work to seal corroded rims if the problem is in the bead area. You only have to be a bit carefull with the loose tyre afterwards. I flush them out with the hosepipe before disposing of it. Goop is soluble and any sticky spillage is easily removed.

After fitting a new tyre I leave it un-inflated and run it on the balancer and try revolving the tyre on the rim to find it's sweet spot before applying rim seal, then inflate and do a final balance.

The advantage of sealants is that should you have a puncture at speed, the deflation is greatly reduced allowing a controlled stop, followed sometimes by a seal forming that with a top up of air can allow you to finish your journey under power rather than on a low-loader.

I can see why tyre fitters dislike the stuff as it takes away some of their business in their eyes, but I doubt it does much as a lot of riders would still get a puncture looked at and not ignore it for ever.

I have also used the after-puncture aerosol re-inflator/seals in the car and that lasts the life of the tyre and is not removable and prevents vulcanised repairs. Not sure if I'd use this on a bike but I would probably carry a can if going somewhere remote.

[Andy m 23,764]

We tested the stuff work wanted us to sell. Stick a nail in half a test tube of gunk, seal the top and invert the tube every day for a week. The resulting orange mess is just like doing the same with sea water. The instructions do tell you to check the rim has no damage that'll break through it's paint or lacquer, so the manufacturers know this. 

 

It was invented back in 30's when all tyres had tubes. If it sprays from a tube onto a rim, chances are it'll fail to seal. You will then bin the tube and clean the rim, so no harm done except that it would stop you patching that tube.

 

If you like this, I can also probably get you PTFE to go in gearbox oil and a fuel catalyst to improve MPG (also doubles as a fishing weight) 😁

 

Andy

Edited July 28, 2019 by Andy m

[baben 11,867]

Would Goop work in tubed tyres to prevent the nasty blowout effect that you otherwise would get? Asking for a friend.

[Andy m 23,764]

I don't know the mechanics of these supposed blow outs. 

 

A tube going down rapidly is the same as a tubeless doing the same. The difference is that the bead holds a tubeless while the tubed bead has to be free so you can actually change the tube. 

 

If the gloop stops the tube going down rapidly it'll stay on the rim. 

 

My practical experience was that the tube seemed to be loosing pressure so I pumped it up. Came back and it was totally flat. The nail made small holes that were sealed. These then joined to make a flap which was too big to seal. I imagine the risk of rapid deflation and the tyre coming off the rim from a half inch flap was greater than if the original panel pin (1.5mm) hole had not sealed? If I'd found the nail after the first hole I would probably have got us home. 

 

Andy

[Tex 36,817]

3 hours ago, Andy m said:

I don't know the mechanics of these supposed blow outs. 

 

A tube going down rapidly is the same as a tubeless doing the same. The difference is that the bead holds a tubeless while the tubed bead has to be free so you can actually change the tube. 

 

I have had a ‘supposed blowout’ and it scared me shitless. An inner tube that bursts (just like a balloon does) takes a nanosecond to totally deflate.

 Fully inflated to f*** all in the time it takes a sparrow to fart.  Tubeless tyres do not do that (in my experience). 

 

I never met anyone who’s experienced a blowout who’s remotely interested in repeating the experience. 

[Andy m 23,764]

Truck tubeless certainly go bang. It's usually a heat issue, under inflation and load, or brakes getting hot due to defects or overloading. The air expands until the bead pops, or a nail pops them like a balloon in the sidewall or they just wear thin and run faster and hotter. It's why they will eventually mandate TPS*. 

 

Given bike tyres are generally way bigger than they need or want to be due to fashion concerns (you can't overload them) , the brakes likewise run insanely cold and the owners lavish attention on them, I doubt many go this way. The seam of a tube is certainly another thing to go wrong and I would never use a tube without a known brand. I've also had a bike shop try to sell me a tube that had been stored for too long and too light/hot. 

 

Tubeless are more forgiving in this, the bead and general construction aimed at making the seal mean they are stiffer when the pressure is low. 

 

The gunk makes no difference to tubeless when they actually explode, it adds mass so may heat up a bit slower, but when they go all you find is gunk splattered at the extremities of the black crater where the mud wing used to be. 

 

*the EU is stuck at the committee stage, they can't decide if you have to have a cab display. The valve mounted magic eye loonies of course don't want this because it would ban their product, but it also makes sense to send non-critical warnings to the fleet via telematics not the driver. You don't want the M25 closed everytime a petrol tanker is 1 PSI down and the driver decides he'd rather go home at the end of his shift than spend the night in Aberdeen and then wait for a tyre fitter to arrive at the depot next day. The tyre makes already know they are going to RF chip the tyres and take the entire market, so it's all very silly. 

 

Andy

[listener 11,332]

1 hour ago, Andy m said:

Truck tubeless certainly go bang.

 

Judging by the eviscerated tyre remains you often see lying at the side of the road, I'm glad I've never been in the vicinity of a blow-out! 

 

It's one of the reasons I always try to overtake trucks asap; sitting alongside a cluster of potential bombs is not my idea of fun. 

[Hickky 3,131]

For the last 5 years I have always had my various car tyres filled with Nitrogen rather than air. The valves are bluetooth linked to the vehicle to detect any deflation, I've not had any. Maybe this is actually more beneficial for tubeless bike tyres as the Nitrogen does not get so hot when adjutated and you can run more precise pressures. This does not mean the tyres don't warm up, but the carcass flex is more constant. Does anyone know is better road racing teams use Nitrogen? I know F1 teams do!

[Tex 36,817]

Not sure about Moto-GP but road racers just use good old fashioned air. The sound of compressors hammering away probably contributed to my hearing loss!  

 

My son tried nitrogen in his Street Triple tyres and was impressed.

[embee 7,288]

There are a couple of reasons why various vehicles/industries use nitrogen in tyres.

In commercial aircraft they use extremely high pressures (200psi rings a bell but I stand to be corrected on that) and temps drop to -60C at altitude. Any moisture will condense and freeze and you potentially get a lump of ice inside the tyre, so the gas needs to be dry. Also if there is a fire on the ground, an exploding tyre filled with air would blow oxygen into the fire and spoil peoples' day.

F1 of course work on a knife edge regarding tyre performance, so also need the gas characteristics to be known and as stable as possible, hence also needing a dry gas, and the fire aspects are as for aircraft, much safer to have an inert gas rather than a reservoir of oxygen.

One aspect which the aftermarket sellers cite is the lower permeability of tyres with nitrogen compared to oxygen. That may be measurable, but unless you intend to ignore your tyre pressures for a year at a time it really can't be significant for a general purpose road vehicle. As I understand it, the commercial nitrogen usually used for such purposes is not particularly pure, but it is dry. Critical industries probably use a pure nitrogen, but the local tyre depot doesn't. You can look up the purity values for the different categories, which of course has big cost implications.

Air having gone through a commercial compressor tends to be dried a bit, everyone who has a compressor in their garage knows you need to drain out the condensate regularly, if it's in the tank it isn't in the air.

You won't do any harm using 99% nitrogen rather than air (79% N2), but I'm not sure what real world benefits it offers for the cost.

[Trev 18,912]

3 hours ago, embee said:

 

You won't do any harm using 99% nitrogen rather than air (79% N2), but I'm not sure what real world benefits it offers for the cost.

 

Easier to make the tyres squeal ? 

[listener 11,332]

20 hours ago, Trev said:

 

Easier to make the tyres squeal ? 

 

I thought it was helium that made you squeal?!  

[Trev 18,912]

48 minutes ago, listener said:

 

I thought it was helium that made you squeal?!  

 

That's why I only got a C in O Level Chemistry .... that and the 'bunsen burner incident' 

[listener 11,332]

9 hours ago, Trev said:

 

That's why I only got a C in O Level Chemistry .... that and the 'bunsen burner incident' 

 

That'll teach them to serve double sprouts for dinner!