Tires Frustrated in Tennessee - Tire Related

Haneyrm · Jul 6, 2007

Took off work early this afternoon to head down to the farm and do a little tractor work. Got on the tractor and mowed for about 10 minutes and noticed that the left front tire was low. To make a long story short, on the way back to the barn it went completely flat. Plugged a small hole and tried for two hours to get air back into the tire. No luck. Finally gave up and came home to drink beer. I even tried the old ratchet strap around the tire deal with no luck. Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong? I guess I will take it off in the morning and see if I can find a tire place to help me out.

Mike

gator · Jul 6, 2007

Did you take the schrader valve out of the stem? I spent a long time on a riding mower tubless tire for the same thing until I took the schrader valve out, used a rope around the tire, and a compressor with a rubber tipped blow gun on the valve stem to seat the bead.

Gator6x4 · Jul 6, 2007

Haneyrm said:
Took off work early this afternoon to head down to the farm and do a little tractor work. Got on the tractor and mowed for about 10 minutes and noticed that the left front tire was low. To make a long story short, on the way back to the barn it went completely flat. Plugged a small hole and tried for two hours to get air back into the tire. No luck. Finally gave up and came home to drink beer. I even tried the old ratchet strap around the tire deal with no luck. Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong? I guess I will take it off in the morning and see if I can find a tire place to help me out.

Mike

Tire dealers remove the valve core prior to re-inflating. This allows for more air to enter the tire. Replace the core after tires seats to rim and inflate to proper PSI. You will also probably have to use the ratchet strap around the tire also.

irwin · Jul 6, 2007

AWDirect.com - ESC35 Cyclone Tubeless Truck Tire Bead Seater

I saw one of these in action - not to bad.

eBay Motors: Tire Blaster Bead Seating Tool 5 gallon tank Air CH-5 (item 260133291655 end time Jul-07-07 18:50:56 PDT)

jbrumberg · Jul 7, 2007

Haneyrm:

In addition to the above posts I would check the integrity of the tire bead as well as "slime" it. I believe there are special solutions for sliming- I use liquid detergent. Jay

jinman · Jul 7, 2007

I recently had a tire get low and come off the rim when I made a sharp turn. Luckily, I was near the barn and our compressor. I was able to get the tire to set the bead using a ratchet strap and soapy detergent as Jay mentioned. I didn't have my blowgun at that location, so leaving the valve core in place worked okay, but only after I'd soaped the bead well on both sides of the tire and pulled the ratchet strap as tight as I could get it. Once the bead was set, I had to let air out before I could even get the ratchet off.

...it sure is nice to have a FEL-jack when working on front tires.