Cause of slow leak in tubeless tire

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Acoustoman
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Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2013 12:27 am
Location: Moreno Valley, CA

Cause of slow leak in tubeless tire

Postby Acoustoman » Tue Dec 17, 2013 10:14 pm

This seems so crazy, I don't know if I should even mention it, but it might help someone. I've had a slow leak in my front tire, enough so that I'm having to reinflate every 3-4 days. I finally got around to looking into the cause of the leak, thinking it might be a leaky valve stem, valve, or whatever. I sprayed soapy water around the rim and noticed 2 slow leaks. It turns out that when the tire was mounted, a couple of mold tabs (I dont' know what they're called, but rubber spikes left over from the molding process) got tucked under the rim. Anyway, this was causing the leak. I deflated the tire, carefully pushed the tire back with a screwdriver, then pulled the rubber pieces out with needle-nose pliers. Glad I checked this first before spending time pulling the wheel off and submerging in a bucket of water. :)
20131217_185000b.jpg
Rubber tab caught under rim when tire was mounted. This was causing a slow leak in several locations.
20131217_185000b.jpg (33.18 KiB) Viewed 4389 times
I currently have: 1981 CB650C, 1973 CB500K; Next project: 1973 CB750K :-j

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