Stopping Air Leak From Tyre /Rim

Not without removing the tyre first. You'll never hope to seal a leak from the outside.

Rob Graham

What a bodge! I bet the next person to try to take the tyre off will love him. Why not just clean the rim up properly, paint, and re-fit the tyre with the usual tyre soap?

...With the old tyres I usually had to add a

Usenet Nutter brought next idea :

Are these alloy or steel rims? With alloy rims they can just polish up the rims, to remove the corrosion.

See the next time you consider replying ...DON'T BOTHER .

You've never seen rubber solution being used by tyre fitters when fitting tyres ? You've never heard of black silicone ?

They are alloys ...I'll see how it goes ...might not lose any air at all.

You could always put a tube in the tyre.

No, I haven't actually. I've seen a white product to help ease the tyre over the rim but I think that if they used rubber solution it would cause the tyre to stick fast to the rim (by rubber solution I take it you mean rubber solution - a type of glue that they use to stick tyre patches on with.

No, but then I might well not have done.

Rob Graham

Nearly all our motorbikes and scooters have ally wheels (none of our cars do) and nearly all have leaked by the time I get them (old and tired, just like me).

My std routine is to completely strip them of any remaining paint (Nitromors, various levels of wire brush etc) then start with an acid etch primer followed by summat hard like a two pack or even smooth Hammerite / chassis paint (if you were doing a car wheel you could just do this to the wheel well). Left to fully harden before re-fitting the tyre it then provides a corrosion resistant barrier and on our bikes, generally never needs any further attention.

For a car the problem is how long you can have the wheels off. Maybe if you have (or can get) a spare set ... another reason for some winter tyres maybe! ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. A mate gave our daughter my ex motorbike and whilst it was his he had the wheels plastic / powder coated. I hate the stuff, as soon as water gets under one bit it just corrodes away underneath till the coating falls away in great big scabs. It's also a bugger to get off, even the shot blasting people I speak to hate it as it re-melts as they try to remove it so often burn it off first (nice).

There are some people whom it is a real pleasure to help or to share experiences with. And there are others. So in future, if I reply to your posts at all, it will only be to mock them, or to save others from the consequences of any erroneous advice that you might offer.

No, sorry.

I really must apologise here. Yes, I have heard of black silicone, but I couldn't resist the chance of a cheap and unworthy jibe. I would like to be able to promise never to do so again, but I can't find it in my heart to do so.

Well I'm sure that losing air from rims is not that unusual so I'd imagine there are products made for such situations .I'm only using the term "rubber solution" that the fitter used .I didn't for a minute consider he meant a glue.

At least one of these products ( 5th one down ..Pink Panther ) specifically mentions using it with wheels which are losing air.

Personally, I'd spend a few quid having the wheels blasted and powdercoated rather than bodged with black silicone.

-- Douglas

The local tyre shop charged a tenner for a sand down and a spray of paint. Never leaked again.

In message , Harry Bloomfield writes

Quite often with alloys that have been kerbed you'll find that corrosion has got under the plastic/painted/lacquered surface and it's bubbled up. The only proper solution is to blast back to metal and hope that the corrosion has left a decent enough surface to refinish. There aren't that many alloys that are uncoated metal, AFAIK they almost all have some sort of coating.