confused about tube in tyres

Hi Allein m, very hard to find much about this so I can only pass on what I was told.
I had a slow leak in a tubeless tyre on my caravan while in outback Qld. I couldn't get a replacement because of the size and a cause of the leak couldn't be found at the time. I asked a tyre centre to fit a tube for me and he said that it was not acceptable to do that. The reason he said was that at highway speeds the heat build up caused by flexing and rubbing tube against tyre has been proven (by who??) to cause premature tyre failure and blow outs. He also said that the insides of tubeless tyres have been known to be quite rough and do cause abrasions to the tube causing them to fail. Sounded like logic at the time. (The cause of t he leak was later found to be faulty rims)

Cheers

Tubeless tyres are exactly that. Their design, in general terms, allows for slow deflation if you have a small puncture. Anything with a tube deflates immediately so creating a greater risk of an incident due to rapid loss of control. You will find that in most if not all jurisdictions it is therefore illegal to put a tube in a tubeless tyre and your insurance company will frown upon it as well. Unless it is a really badly damaged carcass many can be repaired by the application of a decent patch but sometimes not at all. Hit a really big rock on a muddy track coming into Broken Hill one year and whilst it could have been patched it would only have been OK for a rarely used spare so it was thrown away and it was new from Adelaide so only crossed the Simpson

Split rims operate completely differently from tubeless tyres by design which makes them easier to pull apart to replace tyres. Having seen more than a few blow a retaining ring out after being put back together I know which I prefer and you will not find too many organisations with strong OHS&W policies that use them these days

Depends on the damage that causes the slow leak but it can either be patched and made completely workable or not

Regards

Rob

Thank you for your reply that does make a lot of sense cheers

G'day allein m

I googled a bit and the consensus from tyre technical sources is that putting tubes in tubless tyres is unwise.

This exerpt fromthis link gives a bit more detail than most:

"Automobile/Truck Tires

Do not install tubes into a radial automobile or truck tire. Most tubeless rims have a drop center. The drop center prevents the tube from making good contact with the tire. This can lead to damage to the rim or the sudden escape of air trapped beneath the tube and a drop in air pressure within the tube body. Tubeless tires have thicker sidewalls than tube tires. The inner tube helps support tube tire sidewalls, and this helps maintain positive contact between the tire and the inner tube. The stiffer radial sidewalls cause friction with the inner tube, and this can lead to failure of the tube or the sidewalls, and a sudden blowout while driving."

Cheers

allein,
on that old spare you could use a product like this. Tyre sealant

They used it on all the machines where I worked to not only seal the tyres but to also make them easy to get off the rims. I ran it in tractor steer tyres because I was always getting stakes. Problem gone once I used it.

A few years ago, one of my tyres had developed a slow leak, and I couldn't for the life of me find the source of the leak (using the soapy water method)...

So down to Beau's I go, and says "This tyre's got a slow leak, can ya's fix it?"

Bloke says "Yeah, no worries, leave it with us and come back in a coupla hours" (or words to that effect)

Came back a couple of hours later, there's the wheel/tyre by the door, and I says "Is she ready?" .. Bloke says "Yep, all done, ready to go, that'll be $xx thanks"..

Pays the moneys, throws the wheel/tyre in the back, and away I go....

It wasn't until some time later, during a routine inflation/deflation/pressure check or whatever, that I actually noticed that the valve stem was ummm, "different"...

Turns out that they'd simply stuck a tube in the (tubeless) tyre.
Maybe they couldn't find the leak either...............

Since that time, said wheel/tyre has covered many thousands of kms (on highway & off-road), been from one side of the country to the other & back (via "the middle") at least 3 times (the last couple of trips on the c/t), and has been run at reduced pressures for much of the time....
I keep telling myself that "one o' these days" I'm going to rip that tyre off the rim, remove tube, and have another go at finding that d@mn leak, but haven't gotten 'a round tuit' yet ;-)))


Here's what Mick Hutton has to say about the matter >>

Beadell Tours - Tubes for Tyres

Note the reference to **Talcum Powder**


:)

thanks for that i will put some of the sealant into the Tyre Ed C thanks

Beadell Tours - Tubes for Tyres well worth reading thank you I am saving up to buy a landcruser standard with split rimes and that is information worth keeping