Why are my front tires flat all the time!!!

[Egon]

12 northern pike

Hope you found someone to give them too. Sometimes they were referred to as Slough Sharks!

 

[jgrreed]

Agree, w-o-r-s-t f-i-s-h e-v-e-r........

Actually a buddy of mine who grew up in La Loche (same level of northern-ness as Fort Mac on the Sask side) grew up eating them. He was raised traditional Dene Cree and they eat them all the time.

I personally can't stand Jackfish. They remind me of alligators - too many teeth and too small a brain!!!

Now pickerel on the other hand.... mmmmmmm.....

-Jer.

 

[Egon]

Now pickerel on the other hand

Is a small slough shark! You can make a little money betting on this !

Now a "Walleye" is maybe what you are referring to and is excellent eating.

A lot of people mistakenly refer to them as Pickerel and get a little adamant on their terminology.

Easy Beer money.

 

[patrick_g]

Sometimes folks get really careful about testing all the rubber of a tire, including the side wall and the valve stem with soap solution BUT do not check the entire surface of the rim/wheel (BOTH SIDES) where porosity, corrosion, or whatever may allow an air leak.

I'm with JJ on the air leak detection. If it looses air fast enough to be flat sitting still overnight it looses air fast enough to see the bubbles. I am not particularly concerned with not testing for a leak under exactly the overnight conditions. I would not be too concerned with the relative expansion and contraction differentials between tire rubber and wheel materials. Can anyone offer evidence of EVER observing that?

You put air in and it leaks out. It is unlikely that it leaks out over a really wide porous area rather than a quite localized spot. The leak will be detectable if you are thorough and careful in your technique.

You could "paint" the whole tire, wheel, and valve stem (including the cap) with rubber cement and hang the tire in the air so no part of it touched ground. Now tell me how the air could get out without blowing up a ballon looking bump in the rubber cement.

Pat

 

[Egon]

The problem and specific detection lies in the temperature at which the leaking occurs.

 

[Eagleview]

Just a thought , is it possible that moisture in the valve stem freezes and pushes the valve off of it's seat a little and deflates the tyre ? Next day at the tyre shop the valve has thawed and shows no leak .

 

[J_J]

Just a thought , is it possible that moisture in the valve stem freezes and pushes the valve off of it's seat a little and deflates the tyre ? Next day at the tyre shop the valve has thawed and shows no leak .

A small balloon secured on the valve stem with a rubber band should be able to test out that situation.

 

[gemini5362]

. I would not be too concerned with the relative expansion and contraction differentials between tire rubber and wheel materials. Can anyone offer evidence of EVER observing that?

OK Pat I will give you my example and you can tell me what you think. My fiance bought a new corolla During the spring. A couple of months after she bought it she hit a pothole and bent the rim. It did not lose air so she did not worry about it. She drove that car all summer making trips between my house and tulsa where she lived. She came to visit one weekend in the fall and it turned cold the night she was here. She woke up sunday morning and that tire was completely flat. I aired it up and tested for a leak and it was leaking where the rim was bent. I had some slime so I slimed it to see what happened. It held air with the slime and went to a salvage yard and got a used rim with a fairly new tire on it. we swapped out the tires and rims and kept her bent one for a a full size tire spare. She had that car for a another year and that tire never did lose any air. Now what would be your explanation of a tire running for several months without losing air then the first cold day we have it goes flat overnight. The leak that was found was not a nail but was leaking around the bent rim. I attribute that to the temperature change contracting the rim or the tire enough to lose the seal.

 

[J_J]

I think that the reason for the leak has been stated before, Say you have a bent rim and it holds air at 32 lbs not leaking for a year. It gets cold one night, and the tire pressure is reduced due to cold temp, and it starts to leak. That is sort of logical isn't it. I have aired up tires to 45 lbs, and found no leak, So I let some air out to the stated pressure on the tire, and it started to leak. This is also logical. That same car could have hit a pot hole that day and when night, and cold came, it started to leak. If you want to keep the tire and rim, then I would break it down, clean the rim, and put some tire bead sealant all around.

 

[gemini5362]

I think that the reason for the leak has been stated before, Say you have a bent rim and it holds air at 32 lbs not leaking for a year. It gets cold one night, and the tire pressure is reduced due to cold temp, and it starts to leak. That is sort of logical isn't it. I have aired up tires to 45 lbs, and found no leak, So I let some air out to the stated pressure on the tire, and it started to leak. This is also logical. That same car could have hit a pot hole that day and when night, and cold came, it started to leak. If you want to keep the tire and rim, then I would break it down, clean the rim, and put some tire bead sealant all around.

JJ you could be right and as I said before i bought her a good rim and tire and that one was kept for a spare for a while after. My opinion on it is that as the temperature went down the rim and tire contracted at slightly different rates and with the rim being bent that was enough for it to lose air. I wont ever know for sure unless someone has some studies on that issue.

 

[patrick_g]

OK, my bad. I didn't type in pages of exceptions and exclusions. Bent rim could easily have been a marginal case where the tire was on the verge of leaking and just about anything, even alignment of the planets could have been the itsy bitsy force to move one atom a smidgen and let it start to leak.

How about an example with an INTACT RIM?

Pat

 

[gemini5362]

OK, my bad. I didn't type in pages of exceptions and exclusions. Bent rim could easily have been a marginal case where the tire was on the verge of leaking and just about anything, even alignment of the planets could have been the itsy bitsy force to move one atom a smidgen and let it start to leak.

How about an example with an INTACT RIM?

Pat

I agree anything could have caused it to leak not necessarily the temperature but it is MY story and I am sticking with it.
If I come up with an example of a straight rim then I will post it.

 

[JRobyn]

The leaks that really annoy me are the little 10" wheels/tires (pneumatic with tubes) I got at Horrid Freight to use on my generator. They leak down over a period of months. I assumed it was because of cheap, porous Chineses rubber in the tubes, so I put a bunch of the WallyWorld (Victor) slime in each one and it slowed down the leaking so that instead of taking 2 months to go flat, it takes 4! Guess I'll have to find some reasonable-quality tubes.

- Jay

 

[studor]

Jay
Those little tires are annoying. I have tried real slime and it seems to work so far (about a year). Otherwise I just keep the tire chuck handy
I think you can now get solids in that size -- might be easier than fooling around with tubes

 

[Bedlam]

Oh Yes those from Harbor Freight always leek down ,But consider that a good tube would cost approx. 8 to 10 dollars and they sell the wheel and all for about 5 dollars, So thats a tell tale sign.I believe it probably the material for the tube that has problems.Its paper thin.
Speaking of thin, thats how I find those small tractor (ride on type) tires to be they don't take plugs well, i always end up putting a patch on the inside

 

[Eagleview]

A cheap way to stop the poor quality tubes from leaking on those Chinese hand trucks etc. is to fill them completely with water . Water wont seep through the tube like air can . And tyre sealer will only seal the outer circumfrence of the tube and not the walls or inner portion .

 

[Bedlam]

Good to know I never would have thought of that.
This will bring allot of jokes about ballast.LOL

 

[JoeL4330]

compressors create moisture in the high pressure line ...there are water separator/filter/coalescers you can put at the end of the line that take care of the water problem ... Compressed Air Accessories including Compressed Air Filters, Dew Point Monitors, Automatic Drain Valves and other compressed air accessories - Industrial Process Solutions ...pros who blow paint for a living know this but, apparently, not those who fill tires.

 

[J_J]

A cheap way to stop the poor quality tubes from leaking on those Chinese hand trucks etc. is to fill them completely with water . Water wont seep through the tube like air can . And tyre sealer will only seal the outer circumfrence of the tube and not the walls or inner portion .

You said,
And tyre sealer will only seal the outer circumfrence of the tube and not the walls or inner

Not totally true. I have taken my Slimed tire off the rim, and that stuff covers the complete inside of the tire including rim. I think most of the sealers will cover everything inside. As your tires roll, the sealant initially coats the inside of the tire, and the excess just rolls around inside, and when it finds a leak, the little fibers and juice try and plug the hole. It usually does a good job. A few people say it doesn't work well, but the majority think otherwise. Even in tractor tires with liquid ballast, there is a certain ratio of the Gemplers sealer that is mixed to give the protection needed. After you have the stuff in the tire, it would be hard to determined if you had a leak and it was fixed by the Slime or whatever. Gemplers Bullet proof sealer is supposed to seal up to a 1/4 in hole.

 

[Eagleview]

From what i understand , the excess slime drips off , and runs off the vertical surfaces of the tube just like it runs off the walls of the bottle it is supplied in , and settles to the bottom . It stands to reason too me that if the walls of the bottle will become clear again after shaking it up , the same would happen inside a tyre . And if it is completely clear , it would be too thin to seal a porous tube . And slime may not have as much air contact through the walls of a porous tube as one that has a puncture hole to allow the reaction to take place and cause the slime to go off and seal . But these are only my thoughts which WILL differ to some .