Tire Repairs??

[fast1]

  I used to work in a tire shop and have changed every style tire you can imagine- including one from a jet plane. By far the hardest one was a terra flex ( HUGE misnomer) dirt bike rear with 2 rim locks and a tube, 2 of which I pinched. Left about half the skin off my fingers behind for lube. Maybe Stuntman Fubar could bring one?

[Dennis]

That was part of my tire changing disaster.  The fellow with the machine who was helping me had never dealt with rim locks before.  We simply mounted the tires without them.

[Donovan]

Don't want to sound to ignorant but what are wheel locks.  The only ones I have come across have been on cars.

[Rusty Bucket]

Tires which are thought to be at-risk of spinning on the rim - usually dirtbike tires run at low pressure, though some '70's streetbikes were fitted with them as well - are fitted with clamps that are tightened with bolts extending through the center of the rim, looking somewhat like multiple valve stems. They mechanically clamp the tire beads to the rim, preventing the rim from turning independantly.  These complicate matters for changing (and balancing if there is only one) tires and tubes...

[Hans]

I read an article about the Suzuki 1000 Superbikes at the Daytona 200 a few years back spinning the rear tire 270? on the rim over the course of a stint and they still held full pressure.  The bikes have to come in for gas at half distance and usually get a new set of tires.

[Rusty Bucket]

Tubeless tires creep routinely and without incident, especially when they are subject to low pressure and high power (read: at the drags) but the stems on tubes would be less forgiving...which is why tube-type tires at the digs get screwed to the rims with sheet-metal screws, or on big pro-power cars, end up riding on the same sort of bead locks that 4x4 guys and monster trucks use.

[madmac74]

 I too have a Sloww leak on the 1200 Kaw.. I noticed it after a high speed run back from Barkerville.  The following day it was flat  .  So I did the soap thing and didn't find any leaks.  It might be a bead leak. If i re-fill the tire to spec ( 38 psi)  it slowly go's flat in about 2 days . Wouldn't mind checking the beads.

MAC

[Hans]

I just put a plug in a tire today, but it was my Ford.  My summer tires are near done but I picked up a nail.  The tire shop said they wouldn't fix the tire because the wear bars are showing, they would however sell me a brand new set.......  Winters go on ina few weeks, so doing it DIY was the order of the day.  I'll see if there is air in the tire tomorrow morning.

[fj1200]

I've had occasion to put plugs in truck,car and bobcat tires and they work just fine----most of the time. My preferred way is a patch on the inside, but you do what you have to do. There was a time b-4 the CYA at all costs (usually yours) mentality, that service stations--remember them---used to do that as well.

[fast1]

 Ahh.. the good old days of Bud's Texaco! one side was store, the other service station. Now all ya get is gas and slurpees! The Husky on tenth and central was the last to go. Up until a couple years ago they were still an old fashioned station. Now it's nuthin' but rubble. Have you all noticed most gas stations charge for air from there crappy little pumps? Mohawks still don't.

[Hans]

Service station has taken on a new meaning.......