In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Tire Mounting
Ambrose
Member Posts: 3,208 ✭✭✭✭
Got some tires for my ATV. What is the composition of the slime used on the bead of tubeless tires?
Comments
Huh????????????
If mounted by a tire shop, it should be a water soluble detergent.
The product Slime is very difficult to get rid of and can inhibit tire repair that need to adhere to the tire walls.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
I guess I wasn't clear: When the tire stores mount tubeless tires on rims, they smear some kind of slippery stuff on the tire beads to make them slide on the rims easier and to effect a seal. What's that slippery stuff made of?
What Alpine said. It's soap. Make a mix of 50-50 dish soap and water. apply to wheel beads, and tire beads with a paint brush or rag. Now mount your tires.
Way above my pave grade
Take them to Wally W. and save some time and they mount them cheap.
What the others said. Soapy water. Nothing fancy. I mounted tires at Firestone for four years when I was a teenager. That was 40+ years ago but I don't believe much has changed in the way tubeless tires are mounted.
As said above, simply soap and a little water. Just helps the tire slide onto the rim without damage to the rubber.
If doing yourself, leave the tires in bright sunlight for several hours. This warms the rubber and makes it less ridged. If its freezing outside, try a heated garage or someplace warm.
Yep it's just soapy water. I used to fix tires when I worked at a service station back in HS. Doubt it's changed.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
mike55, Leaving the tires in the sun is a great idea! Unfortunately, there's not much sunshine in Michigan in January but, while the tires on my quad are badly checked, they still hold air and do the jobs I need done. So I'll try to wait until a sunny Spring day to tackle that mounting project. The quad is a '97 and I believe that's only the 2nd set of tires on there. It's been used hard here on the farm so the outfit doesn't owe me much.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your responses. You confirmed my guess of liquid soap.
Ambrose, what area are you in? I am doing a table at the Mich Antique Arms show this w/e. Do you go to any shows?
Just bring them inside to warm them up. Should stay pliable long enough for mounting.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
I mounted new tires on my Honda Rancher.It took me 12 hours because I got in the "Its not going to whip me " state of mind.Lesson learned.Pay someone that knows what they are doing.
navc130: I am in the Grand Rapids area and, yes, I usually go to the Grand Rapids gun show.
You guys ever get above the bridge lunch is on me.
Dunbarboyz - now you tell me. I hunted south of Gould City for 20+ years on paper co. land. I quit hunting four years ago. We stayed on the Hiawatha Club where friends were members.
Ambrose - My daughter lives in Comstock Park. Never went to that show but hit most of the Detroit area shows for years.
Well, it ain't dish soap. If your tire shop is using soapy water, you need to look for a different tire shop.
The 25# bucket of KENTOOL tire mounting lube I just checked is very unspecific and says "a thick, dilute-able vegetable product".
Yes, you CAN use soapy water but this can and will cause rim corrosion and/or degradation of the tire beads. It also doesn't provide the level of lubrication for some mounting methods resulting in tearing or damage to the beads.
Does this answer the question??????
The tire shop I go to uses Murphy's oil soap from a bucket next to the mounting machine. It's not liquid. About the consistency of grease. I do believe it's vegetable based.
When I was a kid, over 50 years ago, I worked in a station and did tire work then later as a tire man for a short time for a trucking company and they used something we just called elephant snot, not sure what it was but I can guarantee it was not just dish soap and water, it was more oily like the Murphy's mentioned by notnow but it has been too long to remember whether we diluted it with water or not... If you decide to use dish soap, I'd suggest Dawn and make sure you rise it off after you are done.
What about ky jelly? Works for many other tight fits!
"The tire shop I go to uses Murphy's oil soap from a bucket next to the mounting machine."
My previous tub of tire mounting lube was Murphy's but KENTOOL was cheaper this time around. Looks the same-gooey, stringy, and hard to wipe off hands. We don't mix with water because I prefer direct application--a little dab'll do ya.
If you have never tried breaking down the bead on a ATV tire/Rim you are going to get some experience you will not forget and some exercise if you are going at it manually without a tire machine designed for such.
Little dab of vaseline healing jelly wiped around the tire bead works for me for the last 50 years. (this type vaseline will help heal your hands during and after the project)
read bdduyp's post again: (this will be cheaper than your Dr's Bill to heal your pain.
.Pay someone that knows what they are doing.
'you are going to get some experience you will not forget and some exercise if you are going at it manually without a tire machine designed for such.'
This is true. ATV rims have a 'beadlok' ring/ridge that is designed to hold the tire bead in place under low pressure use. It can be quite a tussle forcing the bead past this seemingly insignificant ridge. Since my tire machine burned in the shop fire 11/2, I've been w/o such equipment and the boys had a good workout last week with a UTV tire that was leaking.
I started tire repair just under 60 years ago. Dad was a rural mail carrier and usually had 4-5 flats per week. Fixing those flats was part of my after school work so I got a LOT of experience. Likely one of the few farm operations with it's own air powered tire machine back in the 70's. One of the first tools I bought when I moved to my current location in 1980 was a manual tire changing stand. $80 if memory serves. Best investment I ever made and best return for investment EVER.
W/o spending 5 minutes calculating, I'm going to say we have over 200 mounted tires on this operation. We have more spare tires than most folks have in use tires. The current local cost to repair a simple puncture flat is $12-15 plus 32 mile round trip to town (another $20) and 2-3 hours wasted ($??). It doesn't take a genius to know how valuable on site tire repair is for an outfit like this.
Harbor freight has a enexpensive manual tire bead breaker and mounting tool
I bought one yrs ago my sons used waymore than I have I also went on line bought a set of tire spoons great thing to have around also
We all ways just used liquid dish soap i did not even know about the tire mounting lube I remember eving using wd40 a time or two so the tire would slide up on the bead easier
Learned something new
Back as a kid I remember my dad an uncles using a bumper jack and weight of the car to break the bead loose putting the tire under the foot of the jack base and the issued tire iron to fight them back on
And I do not remember them using any thing to help lube the tire
I will add with the weather stll bad I cheated yesterday
i had wallyworld repair one for me the aluminum rim had corroded under the bead and let it leak air.
all to comom problem with aluminum rims in the rust belt part of the country
Mobuck:
I could have written your post, because I've been down the same path , started fixing flats for myself in the 70's. Had two to three vec's at least 5 days per week driving 32 miles of flint rock roads. I bought a air over elec tire machine and gathered in several spare tires so as to throw in a spare until I could get my family's flats fixed. Trying to take a tire to town and pay for flat being fixed and standing around waiting for it to be fixed usually resulted in the delivery vec having a flat by the time it got back home.
Still got the tire machine and still mount my own tires. Tire machine will save lots of $'s if you are operating lots of farm/ranch equipment/ trailers and mowers. Some of them little deep dished 4 through 8 inch lawn tractor rims can also give one some workout experience.
Inner tubes at first used hot patches and when chemical patches came out it was like they invented sliced bread for both the tubes and the tires.
It seemed to average a flat a day when operating 3 vec's on flint rock roads.
A person will learn really fast what brand and type of tires to buy vs tires for Hi-way use when using vec's on flint rock roads.
Attempting to break down ATV tire beads, well you know.
as a kid my tire experience was bicycle tire flats on the same block I lived on
there was a old gas station for a quarter ( my weekly allowance by the way ) the attendant would fix / Patch the innertubes for us kids , now looking back even taking all my cash for week that was a candy bar and a bottle of pop were talking about ) 😲 I am sure they did it out just being nice to us kids . I hope Karma paid them back in life
Soapy water is what we used at my grandfathers gas station.
My brother the mailman had his own tire machine, a manual-operated Coats. When he bought his acreage he moved it there. I then fixed tires by hand for years until I bought a Harbor Freight unit for $29.95. I have done literally hundreds of car, pickup and van tires on it and it probably paid for itself the first day I had it. Several things have broken on it which I reinforced and welded up. I have a dirt floor in the machine shed where it is, so it is bolted to a massive base of 1" plywood bolted to bridge planks which are attached to each other. You can impart a surprising amount of torque with the 5' dismount tool so the thing needs to be solidly anchored to the ground.
I misspent my youth racing motorcycles and working in motorcycle shops. When I started, the manual Coats 550 was standard equipment. A clamp, lever and fulcrum. Unbreakable and nothing to wear out.
So I bought an old used one for home about twenty years ago. I still have it & use it pretty frequently. I can't imagine how many tires I've changed or repaired over the years. Not just motorcycle tires, but ATV, mowers, even car & truck tires. Good times.
Buddy of mine had an old Coats 10-10 tire machine, and as I recall, all he ever used was elcheapo, dollar store-type dish soap, undiluted. Not too sure it wasn't just glycerine with coloring added.
Wow!! 31 comments on tire lube. I mounted a lot of tires when I first started working at a dealership and I think I just used soapy water. Mostly they were large tires and rims on Dodge trucks, pickups and ramchargers. The owner loved to put larger tires and custom wheels on new trucks we would get in. I don't remember any trouble with rims rusting but with all the salt water around here at the beach it would be hard to prove a little soapy water did it.