I've been puzzling for some time, why the rear tyres (tube-less) on our tractor mower have been loosing pressure. I have taken them off a couple of times to submerge them to find the leaks and found none. This week I actually caught one in the act of deflating.
It seems if it happens to nudge anything alongside it, with the sidewall of the tyre, it lifts the bead from the rim releasing enough air to cause a leak which does not re-seal until they are blown back up to their correct pressure.
Fit tubes or double the pressure in them.
Yeah, one of the ones on our lawn tractor does the same - takes about three weeks to go totally flat.
Well... I got hold of a junk tractor a couple of weeks ago to raid for parts (engine in particular as the one in our tracotr went bang). The front tyres were flat and completely deformed, because they'd sat with no air in for 15 years, and for giggles I thought I'd see if I could revive them.
I cleaned them up, ran some ratchet straps around the edge to help the bead sit up against the rim, and amazingly I've managed to pull them back into shape and they've been holding air for a couple of days (one took only about ten mins to sort out, the other I fought with for a good 40 minutes). Those wheels, along with the front axle and front half of the chassis are up in the 'shop now, being turned into a trailer.
Anyway, observations from that exercise:
1) The bead doesn't seat particularly tightly against the rim on these kinds of wheels, so you're could well be right about sidewall deflection causing problems, 2) Debris trapped between rim and sidewall is going to cause trouble, 3) The rims I have were pretty corroded in a couple of spots - I think I got lucky and it's not causing a problem with bead seating, but it could easily be the cause on other such wheels.Amazingly, the rear tyres on the junk tractor still had air after 15 years. I'm going to just put the whole back axle on our tractor in the hope that the reversing gear's a little less worn-out...
cheers
Jules
I have catastrophically deflated a tyre after ramming a low kerb. Airline at 200psi got it smartly back in place.
Most of my leakage is valves and thorns. Green slime in the tyres has reduced the latter remarkably.
"green slime" recommendations please? Cheers JimK
Available from Ghostbusters
I used tyre sealant in several motorcycles in the 1980s and 90s without problems. Try this - recommended by a friend of mine who is an agricultural contractor, although I have no personal experience of this particular product:
Yes, always worth a shot. We gave that a try, but the tyres had just been sitting too long (so had no inclination to go back into correct place), and there was just too much debris in the gap that had opened up between the rim and the bead.
Oh, I finished building the trailer using those wheels from the junk tractor - I've just loaded about 300lbs onto it and so far no tyre leaks.
cheers
Jules
Oh blimey. I dunno. Just go to any garden tractor supplier..
Its fluorescent green, expensive, and ergo, probably American.
There's more than one brand: I just went with the local shops stock.
The "200psi" has got very little to do with it, it's the flow-rate/volume that matters.
This it the way to do it. ;-)
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Tim Downie" saying something like:
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