12/4/2023 0 Comments Valve stem on tire leaking![]() ![]() ![]() Wheel had my (great) valve stems with the nice fat o-ring installed. It held pretty good, it only got soft after several DAYS. Tire looked good. Here is a wheel I fixed recently up because it would bleed down every couple days. The fact that the nipples seal means that if you tighten that nut enough you can probably turn your rim into an inner tube. If you have a tape leak and you seal the stem hole you are now turning your entire rim into an inner tube. sigh.) all you are doing is SEALING UP THE RIM CAVITY.Īnswer: ONLY BETWEEN THE TAPE AND THE CASING If you try to make the o-ring seal, or add a gasket in there (like a piece of inner tube. The stem seals on the interior of the rim and the big rubber bung is very easy to seal and does not need to be super tight. That is the ONLY REASON THAT O-RING IS THERE. Valve stems normally come with a nice little o-ring to protect the rim from scratches. Instead, all the air just goes out that big old hole in the rim where the valve stem pokes out! Duh.Ī leak in the tape will allow air INTO the rim cavity, and it try to get out, and the easiest way out is the valve stem hole. No air of any significance is able to leak out around the nipples. Those little suckers are holder 120kg of force, they are TIGHT. The dirty little secret here is that the spoke nipples actually seal up against the rim and hold air. Please do NOT try to add a gasket of sorts under the nut to stop the air. That does NOT mean that you have a leaky valve stem! Please do NOT try to just tighten the nut more with pliers until you damage the rim. Why do I know it is the tape? OK, so here is the thing, every time you have a tape failure, the air comes out aroundthe valve stem. ![]() If air is coming out ANYWHERE but out of the tire casing or the bead area (technically still part of the casing), IT IS THE TAPE.The sealant belongs between the tire and the tape and no where else.The air belongs between the tire and the tape and no where else.OK, so here is all you really need to know: ![]() Often times it helps which just reinforces the thinking that its not the tape. Sometimes people have tried putting a piece of inner tube or bigger o-ring under the valve stem lock nut trying to seal it up. Ok sure, you can have a faulty new tire with some kind of bead issue, but the sealant should really seal that up.Īt this point the normal response is "no no, it is the valve stem, it is leaking out of valve stem I can feel it". If both of those checks pass, I am 99% convinced it is the tape. Unscrewing valve cores like it is our job. They can pump up track tires to 160 pounds they can damn well get 55 PSI in your gravel wheels. These new (I am old) screw on pump heads are a bit of a PITA, in my opinion, and the oldest pump head which is also the simplest pump head is still the BEST pump head - the big brass Silca push on. That always triggers a long convoluted response as the customer tries to convince me that there is something weird going on elsewhere, because they have pumped this thing up so many times and spent so much time "tracing" the leak, and have convinced themselves that it is something complicated, other than THE TAPE.Īt this point I have them confirm that the valve stem nut is pretty tight, and that the valve CORE is actually tight and did not unscrew a tiny bit when they pulled off the pump. If the answer to the above is yes, I am 85% sure the issue is the tape, and I say so. I ask a few quick questions just to take away any incorrect assumptions on my end: Is the tire new? Did you add sealant? So I get a call from someone saying my new tire sets up but won't hold air. I am going to limit this particular discussion to getting consistent pressure to hold, as opposed to mounting tires. There are many MANY misconceptions about what is happening with your wheel and tire when you are faced with a troublesome slow leaker or struggling to get a new tire set up. I get a lot of questions from customers a year down the road from a wheel purchase looking for help setting up a fresh pair of tubeless tires. ![]()
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