Slow tire leak......should i try Slime ??

YOURTwenty-five years riding and i've never used it, so i need opinions........ for a change.

My front tire looses about 1 psi/day even after my local Honda dealer dismounted it and vigorously cleaned the rim last November.

Should i try Slime or will it do something awful to my Avon or etch vast holes in my wheel rim ????

 

If you slime your tire you will ruin your valve and you will need to re-balance your tire. Other than that ...

 

"Slime" should be illegal. I saw a picture somewhere of the corrosion it caused on a wheel. The tire/wheel will become out of balanced as well, this knowledge is from personal experience with an auto tire. Look closer for your leak, ie., valve, tire bead imperfections, etc.

 

Agreed, the stuff may cause corrosion in the rim of a tubeless tire application, and I would be really reluctant to use it for any high speed application like a motorcycle or car, but I have used it with success in low speed tubed tire applications - like garden tractors, bicycles, etc. Sooo, it shouldn't be illegal, just used properly by the end user for the appropriate application(s). Just my $0.02.

 

personally i wouldnt slime but this is what i would do if i were you back in the day if i had a rim that was questionable and always had a slow leak during the mountain process. take rubber cement and use as the lube over the bead instead of soapy water on both sides use a generous amount it will fill in all the crevasses as the tire seats then tries to form a seal that wont leak ne more and if this doesnt work you may have a hole in the tire somewhere.

imo slime throws the tire way out of harmonic balance. may balance good one way but as soon as you start riding it changes kinda weird to explain but i have had friends back in the day that tried the pre slime mixture that is exactly the same as todays slime mixture but not green lol and it just makes the bike feel weird when rollin down the road kinda like an oscillating vibration that you can tell is there but isn't you know one of them kinda things kinda like the hair standing up on the back of your neck when you know somethings wrong..

 

We warned you about doing those wheelies and using Chinese valve stems but you just didn't listen did ya? :tongue:

Rollin

 

Squirrelman, DONT USE SLIME!!!! it will etch your rim and degrade your tire. plus you will need to dismount the tire and have it fixed. Slime is supposed to be used when you get a puncture from a nail or such and you can remove the object and do not care about your rim/tire.

If your honda tech dismounted the tire did he also remove the old valve stem? try placing the tire/rim/valve under water and look for bubbles. This sounds like either a pin-hole in the tire or a bad valve stem or just simply a bad valve insert. At the mechanic shop I worked at if a tire came in with a hard to find leak we would dunk it and find it fast. Most of the time it was just crap in the bead seal or when it was mounted they didnt use bead sealant. The next most common was a bad seal around the stem or a crack in the stem seal (not the rim metal, but the part that holds the stem to the rim). Only a few times has it been a valve core, but they do get crap in them and most people do not blow out the crap before filling/topping up the tire.

Spend 15mins with a kiddie pool (or some other inventive way) an dunk it.

Zen

 

Thanks, all, for the good advice.

I'm nevva' gonna' use Slime, no way !!

 

Well... I might use it as an emergency measure - as a last resort. Like - out on a long roadtrip, got a leak I can't isolate, etc. But that whole mess (and it WILL BE a mess!) would come off the bike as soon as I got home. It may have been hinted at; but have you checked for a slow leak at the Schrader valve? Might still be a simple fix lad.

 

I think he already put Slime in there. Stop the stunting S'man, stoppies are not good for the bike, much less the tires.

 

Slime is garbage, try popping in some Stan's no tube sealant in and see if it seals anything. It works wonders on my tubeless mtb tires. I can run through a pile of nails and nothing happens.

 

Is that the pink slime used for hamaburgers? That would do the trick too. Just fill the whole tire with it.