i really dont know, at the time my mom had just died, in a 2 year period 7 close friends and family died. I was barely functional, and actually forgot about the wheel trouble, till I realized the ONLY tire that didnt go flat was the steel one
a very cheap friend of mine tolerated a slow leak for 2 years, before selling the vehicle. he was proud he saved the 20 bucks for tire repair......
I've found a crescent wrench inside a tire. (flat) as well as a spark plug, as well as numerous miscalaneous pieces of hardware.
Then there was the brand new car with a WAY offbalance tire - with a full bottle of "Black Label" in it. Somebody was drinking on the job and didn't want to get caught, I guess.
Two vehicles with aluminum rims. Problem all the time. Sometimes it seals, especially with stop leak. If it seals, another one may start to leak. They all leak over time. I don't remember having problems with my old Dakota aluminum rims, nor with another set I had for 30 years, but that didn't see weather conditions and salt.
Greg
Ken,
As other's have mentioned, take the wheel off and cover the tire/wheel with soapy water. Even a slow leak will cause the soap to bubble up.
If you have a container big enough to hold the entire wheel, fill it with water and dunk the wheel. You should see the air bubbles easily enough.
Don't rule out the wheel itself. I had a set of alloy wheels years ago with one rim leaked through the metal. I kept looking for leaks in the tires, without any success. Then I put soapy water on the inside back of the rim and it bubbled up right through the metal. Cheap wheels. I just kept inflating the tires regularly until I could afford new wheels.
Anthony Watson
What I want is to stop leaks in my tires when they occur.
It's easy to take a bicycle tire off the rim, but not a car tire. You need a machine that I don't have space for, and the shops don't even use the hand machine, because it's too much work. They use a pneumatic machine that's much bigger yet.
And it's certainly not something I'd want to do on the road, but I have patched tires with strings on the road.
Government schools should teach auto maintenance?
It doesn't have to hold the hole wheel. Just a portion, up to the rim (and a little higher I see from ;your next paragraph. ) Then rotate the tire so eventually all of it is under water.
Wow. that's amazing. First time I've heard of that. Thanks.
OTOH, really cheap wheels, that is standard steel wheels, no special alloy, used on trucks and plenty of cars, can be dented at the rim when hitting a chuckhole or maybe a curb, making the rim not round but indented there, and they can be straightened with hammer. When it's leaking like that, you can usually put on goggles and hit the dent from behind, which is usually from the side, and knock the wheel back to round, or very close to it. You can use a carpenter's hammer or just about any heavy hammer. You have to really whack it sometimes. It's good practice learning how much effort it takes to bend steel.
You probably don't have to take the tire off.
I don't think anything in the rim or tire is hard enough to make the hammer head shatter, but I'd wear goggles anyhow. or at least safety glasses. Maybe you'll miss and hit something underneath the wheel.
Remove the wheel and spray or brush the whole thing (including the valve and wheel/tyre joint) with soapy water and look for bubbles. You should find a leak that size easily.
All it needs to fix that is a coat of paint/laquer on the inside of the wheel.
My locally owned, been-around-forever tire shop does a good job. $12 last time (first for this car) to clean the rim. All done. I tried to pay more but they wouldn't take more :o) Wouldn't even take a donation to the coffee fund! Dang. They don't advertise, don't need to, which proves my theory that word-of-mouth is the best advertising. OTOH, when my daughter bought tires from Walcrooks, she bought a huge headache. I tried to bring her up right, but she HAD to shop at the Wal.
Pop the tire off, clean the inside of the rim, and paint with a good urethane paint - no more rim leaks
On a trip from Livingstone Zambia up to the Northern Province during the 1973/74 rainy season with the '67 Peugeot 204 we bent the rims in potholes to the point I stopped and hammered them straight at east half a dozen times during the trip. We had half a ton and 4 adults in the car - and Michelin Airstop tubes in the tires to keep the air in.
Spit test the valve. If no joy there have a tire shop break them down, clean and seal the rims. I've had to do that 3-4 times, with both aluminum and steel rims. One time it took the shop twice to get it right.
I had one that was even slower. I really couldn't tell if it was leaking for a long time. As they were new tires, I took it to the tire store. They found a bead leak. He said it was common with aluminum wheels. They clean the wheel edge and put on some bead sealer. Charged be $5 and asked if that was too much!
SM: Yes, that's best.
Sm: Years ago, an old guy showed me how to change tires with a bumper jack, vehicle, and a couple of pry bars. It's a heck of a lot of work, but I've done it.
Sm: Yes, those plug kits with the goopy strings, do work.
SM: I'd like that. I've needed to repair a vehicle, but I've never needed to know the names of the countries in Europe, or the cause of death of Louis VII. I've also never had a moment to find the derivative of
4x^3-3x^2-x-dx.
That was always on my list of things to try, but I never got around to it. I don't have the tools to remove and reseat a tire myself. It was my daily driver so I never found the time to take the wheel off and take it to a shop to remove the tire so I could work on it.
It was easier to gripe about it and keep adding air every week. :)
I did try deflating the tire and patching it from the outside, but that wasn't successful. There was an area a little bit bigger than a quarter where you could see air bubbles bleeding through the metal (when soapy water was applied).
Eventually, I found a nicer set of wheels so it wasn't an issue anymore.
Anthony Watson
When I graduated from a "government high school" in 1969 I knew enough about auto repair to be able to skip the first third of the apprenticeship schooling and was able to more than earn my keep as an apprentice.. Minimum 2 hours a day for 2 years in auto class (double major). after 1 year of regular "rotating" shop classes starting in
10th grade. (took academics 'till grade 9 -music, french etc)DerbyDad03 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@nntp.aioe.org:
Looks like aluminum - doesn't have shine of chrome.
On 11 Mar 2014 17:00:28 GMT in alt.home.repair, KenK wrote,
Green Slime worked for me.
Sure they will find it.
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