Tire bead sealant

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What product is used by tire installers on the bead area when they install tires?
 
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What I've seen used for sealing leaky alloy rims at the bead seating area is a clear sticky substance. First the rim polished there.
 
Is this some special use case? Seems most beads are strong enough to not need any sealant?

I've been mounting my own motorcycle tires for years and the only thing I use is mounting lube.
 
I use this when necessary:

41SAJT2SQTL.jpg


Best practice is to polish the rim seating surface. If your tire has been mounted before and has chunks of rust on its bead rubber try to get that off of there, maybe with a scotchbrite pad. Less is more; polish too much and you cut through the thin rubber and are down to the bead wire, which you definitely don't want to expose.

But sometimes one just has to kludge it with this goop. For example, bead leaks where I want to break the bead but not unmount the tire, I sneak in there with the goop and its little brush and go crazy. If it holds, it holds.

Supposedly it revulcanizes old, tired hard rubber as well.
 
A new tire on a clean wheel does not need any sealer. I can't believe how many tire places glob it all over the wheel when it not even needed, and can cause it to leak if overused. It is not even supposed to be used on the wheel, but the on the tire instead. I only use it for tires that have developed a bead leak. Clean the rim well, and cleaning the bead of the tire I use a nylon radial bristle brush on a drill.
Then, just put the sealer on the tire bead only. Works great for quite a while. The only real fix for a bead leak, is a new wheel, or re-finish the sealing area of the wheel.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
I use this when necessary:

41SAJT2SQTL.jpg


Best practice is to polish the rim seating surface. If your tire has been mounted before and has chunks of rust on its bead rubber try to get that off of there, maybe with a scotchbrite pad. Less is more; polish too much and you cut through the thin rubber and are down to the bead wire, which you definitely don't want to expose.

But sometimes one just has to kludge it with this goop. For example, bead leaks where I want to break the bead but not unmount the tire, I sneak in there with the goop and its little brush and go crazy. If it holds, it holds.

Supposedly it revulcanizes old, tired hard rubber as well.


I have a jar of that exact stuff. For me, it's a last resort sort of thing. Unfortunately, when you go off roading and deflate the tires, having beads that don't leak isn't a possibility. Or when dealing with junkyard sourced wheels from a 2000 model year car ... They just corrode so badly once they get to a certain point that I would be breaking them down every month.

I'm not sure what Walmart uses but it's like rubber cement. I have never had a problem when using X Tra seal but the walmart stuff lifted the F350 right off the ground when trying to break the bead using a jack under the hitch!
 
What is a good way to mark a tire? I have some directional tires and was thinking of having them flipped at WM. Since I have the lifetime balance I think all I have to pay is $20. I know there's tire chalk but don't want to pay $6 or so last time I checked iirc.
 
Originally Posted By: SatinSilver
What is a good way to mark a tire? I have some directional tires and was thinking of having them flipped at WM. Since I have the lifetime balance I think all I have to pay is $20. I know there's tire chalk but don't want to pay $6 or so last time I checked iirc.

Flipping directional tires won't help much, for the effort, since they will still rotate the same direction. But, I find that silver Sharpies work great for marking tires too.
 
Originally Posted By: Traction
Originally Posted By: SatinSilver
What is a good way to mark a tire? I have some directional tires and was thinking of having them flipped at WM. Since I have the lifetime balance I think all I have to pay is $20. I know there's tire chalk but don't want to pay $6 or so last time I checked iirc.

Flipping directional tires won't help much, for the effort, since they will still rotate the same direction. But, I find that silver Sharpies work great for marking tires too.


I think he means have them flipped so the left sides are now right sides so it will wear the other side
 
Originally Posted By: SatinSilver
What is a good way to mark a tire? I have some directional tires and was thinking of having them flipped at WM. Since I have the lifetime balance I think all I have to pay is $20. I know there's tire chalk but don't want to pay $6 or so last time I checked iirc.


I would think any crayon would work. Not exactly sure what you are trying to do by having them flip your tires but as far as marking them I would think any color crayon would work a long with the already mentioned silver sharpie.

Why do you want them to flip your tires? and I guess what do you mean by that also?
 
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