tire repair

she was starting to feel a little "squishy" in the last few turns last night so this morning i checked the rear tire pressure ( i try to every week or so )...down 15 psi.... hmmm...10d nail in between tread...off to local shop and had it patched and back on the road...how do you guys, girls and gay stalkers feel about running on patched tires ??... i've seen plug kits for sale but i wouldn't save a tire with that big of a puncture....i feel ok with a patch...tire is about 50% worn
the nail in the tire is the small dot between the two silver sharpie marker lines

 

i blame the contractor working on my garage/carport

 

I wouldn't miss any sleep about it, I have plug my tire and ride them untill time to replace. I do not take it out for high speed test or carve the cayon just commute.

 

i've only had one flat in nearly 40 yrs of street riding...and it was a front ... but all the ones on dirt bikes prepares you for it....this one still had 27psi in it in the driveway this morning....didn't unnerve me too badly !!! and back on the road before lunch !!!

 

If it is plugged right., ride it as usual. Unless of course, usual for you means 150mph sustained. Otherwise, in your mind, knock the speed rating of the tire a couple of notches, say from W down to H.

that said... if the tire has less than 30% usable life left, I'll just as soon replace it. Might as well put the repair money into a new tire.

Your usable mileage may vary.

 

I've plugged my own tires for decades with nary a failure. I even raced at the local dragstrip on a plugged rear tire. As Reg and Volfy said, if repaired correctly, that tire should serve out the rest of its useful life without issue. Thirty years of plugging tires for myself and my customers and I've never seen a catastrophic failure. Occasionally you get one that doesn't seal well and still seeps. I just pull the old plug and put in a new one. I carry a plug kit when I go on long trips. I wouldn't lose any sleep over this if I were you.

 

I was getting ready for a long ride and noticed a nail in my rear tire. I had a pair of Michelin Pilot Road 2’s with only 500 miles on them and there was no way I was going to replace the tire. I plugged the tire with a repair kit using the "rope" type packing material. I have put 3000 miles on the tires since then and have rarely exceeded 100 mph.

 

Many tire stores on the West Coast (Les Schwab ect) have the equipment and materials to do a combo plug and patch. Dismounting the tire and remounting is another story.

Best to check with any of the tire manufacturers. Some have a type of warrantee some do not.

plugging depends on where the puncture was located. In a sidewall a plug is not a good idea.

 

I have a little experience with riding plugged tired long distances, but I'm going to withhold my opinion save this - if you are financially pretty comfortable, replace the tire. At the end of the day this is gonna cost you about 200 bucks give or take. A plugged tire may indeed be fine, but there's no way it's zero-risk.

 

When I bought an R6 I rode it like it wanted. Top speed and throwing it round. Then a few weeks of motorways it needed a new tire pretty soon. When my mech pulled the rear off it had 5 repairs already. Think the max is 1 or 2 if not close to each other he said. After I had put some abuse through that rear with that many repairs, for weeks mind, not just days, I tend to trust having one repair.

Im not saying a repair means the tire will or wont blow, but I trust them myself. Also I think it depends on the persons skill with repairs. My mech tackes the tire off to repair and makes sure both sides look good. Car mechanics repair tires from just the outside, more like a temporary repair. Those I don't trust.

 

I'm a car mechanic. I repair them from the outside. I consider it a permanent repair, and in most cases it's just that. Only in rare cases do they need "re-repaired".

 

Most of us who aren't car mechanics and who are dope fiends and part time transvestites wonder how in the heck do ya fix a tire from the outside if the tire has a tube?

 

My bicycle tires are the only thing I've seen with tubes in a very loooooong time. I patch the tubes with "Slime" patches. They're the shiznit. And yes, I do dismount those for repair. I have no vintage bikes currently, so everything in my garage (except the bicycles) are tubeless. I'd love to hear your rendition of "The time warp" sometime.

 

This is disappointing. I thought we were going to really learn something new.

Hear and see
Which one is me


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg7gO5PpPUk

 

I think the retro stuff is cool (Triumph, Enfield, CB1100, etc.), but why on earth would they want to go back to tubed tires? I supposed wired spoke wheels might be one reason, but alloy wheels were already in use in the '70s and even 60's.

Bought an S83 for my first bike when I first got back to riding. Having to clean the wire spokes and had a slow leak on the rear tire tube soured the whole bike for me. Sold it after less than 2000 miles and that will be the last tubed tire and wire-wheel bike.

I don't bother fixing punctured tires from the inside, and I have a Nomar tire changer. Again, I derate a plugged tire in my own mind for street riding, which I rarely ride over 6/10th pace anyway. Naturally, I would avoid taking plugged tires to Track Days. Other than that, no worries.

 

'My' mechanic never plugged any of my tires without dismounting them first. Says if there's no visible sign of cause of damage on the outside, not worth taking the risk of not searching for the cause on the inside.

I rode all of the plugged ones until it was time to replace the tire. Never looked at speed, sustained or not.

But riding with a blank spot is something I just won't do. Guess it really doesn't rain much in CA.

Just my 2 cents.

 

For a roadside get you home repair, I have successfully used the push through rope repair from outside as a temporary fix to a nail hole which was good enough for 500 miles to home base.

As the hole was mid tread and the tyre almost new, the local (very rural) tyre shop was happy to dismount the tyre(tire) and remove the temporary patch and after cleaning the hole, carefully inspected inside and out for any damage to casing etc and eventually declared it fit for a proper repair.

40 euro later, and all without getting my hands dirty, the stem of a weird mushroom shaped plug covered in vulcanising glue was neatly pushed through the hole from the inside out, the excess cut off, tyre remounted and rebalanced, and fitted back on the bike. The BT22 tyre(tire), performed faultlessly for its remaining 9,000 miles life. Seems nowadays shops are more keen to just fit a new tyre rather than carry out a proper repair. So rather perversely you may be better off ringing around first to find a shop which does NOT have your tire size/make in stock, and get them to check the tire out. If they see the tyre(tire) has serious damage to casing etc - they obviously will still tell you it needs replacing, but if its good to repair, they should be able to do a repair which will be good for the remaining tread life.


SkiMad