Best technique for finding that troublesome leak!

What about adding half a litre of morning fresh inside the tyre when they are installed on the rim as part of a pre trip service? Then the bubbles will be blowing out of the hole come puncture time!!!!! May play havoc when you are adjusting tyre pressures though!!!!

I haven't been beaten by a pesky leak yet. If there is a troublesome leak I pump the tyres up to 50 plus psi and use the soapy water trick.

You use soapy water but it may be that the water over in the West is errr purer.

Here abouts is a photo of a bone through the nose puncture it wasn't hard to find this puncture. The tyre was on his wheel carrier when he punctured it, he was reversing up and hit a stump.

Years ago, we were in a caravan park at Coober Pedy and my wife noted a half flat tyre on our camper trailer. Jacked it up and put the spare on and tried to find the leak, but in Coober Pedy, there are no unlocked taps to assist. Eventually the gardener (What garden in Coober Pedy???) came along because I had amassed a small crowd by then. He had a spray bottle and he sprayed the whole tyre - Nothing. Check the valve, nothing. Then he sprayed his magic bottle on the rim. A spot weld had let go, and there was a slight leak there. I put a tube in the tyre and also included a note as well that the rim was faulty so the next bloke who fitted a tyre would know.

G'day Mick O

I had a very similar situation to try and resolve on my most resent 'desert trek' with Hugh Brown at Desert Queen Baths, earlier this year.

We had staked a tyre, deep in the the folds of hill country south east of the Kintyre Uranium mine area, this bugger was found and fixed using a plug, pretty standard and I know you and everyone who dares to venture beyond the normal, carries and uses these plug kits and a good air compressor, mostly with great success.

It's a real bummer to wake after a hard won sleep, to find a flat tyre on your vehicle, it's just not a nice way to start any day ~ anywhere.

I had the Cruiser on the jack ~ airing the tyre up as the billy boiled, expecting to find and fix the puncture while I had my morning coffee, I managed a couple of coffee's and a bowl of cereal, but had no joy with finding what caused the 'leak' but found the area where the air escape came from eventually, used up a fair amount of dish washing liquid in the process too.

The wheel came off, we talked about taking the thing down to the Rooney Creek and hurling it into the water, but temperature wise it was already in the forties and the pool was a fair trot away and with far too many rocks/boulders to contend with this idea was shelved.

Hugh thought I lost the plot, when I started scratching a depression into the hard ground using a miners pick, the depression had to be big enough to take a 285 ~ 75R 16 tyre/wheel, I spread a blue polly tarp across the depression and back filled it with water, maybe 20 litres worth.

The air loss came from a tread block on the big Toyo mud tyre, the object in the tyre was not visible so I couldn't tell which direction the hole took, so plugging the leak was not an option at the time, I cut a chunk of floor mat rubber and tried to effect a Phillipino Fix, buy pouring molten rubber into the leaky tread block split, luck has it the floor mat was made of 'fake rubber' so it just caught fire and burnt to black ash, even thought of slicing a genuine Toyo tyre tread (real rubber) block off the side wall punctured tyre from the previous days effort.

Anyway back in Newman now, the tyres were in the hands of Newman Tyres, the fixed side wall plugged Toyo went on the scrap pile, near made Hugh cry as this was a new tyre until it got stabbed. The tread block leaker was stripped off the rim and patched internally, the offending stake, about the size of a Bic Biro now resides in the centre console of the Cruiser with a rail spike and various other treasures Hugh has collected ~ in his tyres on his adventures.

Safe travels : Joe

A kids paddle pool makes for a good tyre leak checker - but of course, you need to have an amount of spare water available to utilise it. Not always possible in the Outback.

All tyre shops have a big water bath to check for leaks, both before and after repairs.

Cheers, Ron.

Mick
If you suspend the wheel between two bars or even on the hub, you can jack up the wheel and use a clear plastic sheet to encompass the lower half of the wheel up to and past rim level. With some bubble making stuff in the water you will easily see where the airleak is from by observing through the clear plastic sheet.
This won't use much water at all and it can be caught and reused when turning the wheel for further checking.
The sheet can have edge folds and reinforced with eyelets so it can be strung up while you do the observation. Maybe never having to remove the wheel from the vehicle.
The use of an LED torch with it's defining light will also help.
This method worked for me when I had my 4 wheeler for spotlighting rabbits and had to use tyre plugs after driving over hidden fencing wire.

PS. Alloy rims can develop pin holes and as someone else mentioned, the spot welds on steel rims can fatigue and have a fine crack, this will find either pretty quick if air is escaping.

You could try sprinkling talcum powder on it . Might be able to locate it that way.

These are the sort of threads that filled the posts here 15 years ago that made this site interesting, about different gear, the pitfalls and how to use it and how to get around problems. Not a lot these days. Michael

This was a good story.
More like suspension trouble than tyre trouble though.

Would suggest a small spray bottle with water/detergent mix - same as used when checking for leaks on gas fittings….But I would also like to mention that when “outback” (if you call central Tasmania “outback”) that even worse that a slow leaking tyre (given you probably had a spare anyway) is a leaking air mattress with a hole the size of a fleas anus – impossible to hear or see. Sleeping with no mattress is zero fun. Same solution as yours – a quick dunk in the nearest pool – in my case Lake Windermere. Leak found in 1 second.



Cheers
Greg

Shu-goo is almost universal way to solve many issues like this.

It can be applied with finger across suspect areas and as it goes across leak will tend to bubble and seal at same time as it has high sticking capacity and can be used without drying out tyre sprayed with water.

It can also be used in layers on inside - thru tend to outside to form full double sided patch.

We have even replaced a full ripped off tyre block like this.

Also repaired everything from cracked air boxes to Sandals.

With lilo's and similar they often perish across and area with no obvious leak and so you spread it across whole area (P.S. use clear not black )


Don't leave home without it - and carry 2 tubes as one of your friends is bound to knock off a tube.

You have buggered more tyres than anyone else I know!

Had a painful leak in one tyre a few years ago - one of 2 punctures I got snigging logs near the Holland track. We thought we got both but one returned or was 2 punctures in the same tyre. It was very slow and intermittent. Took almost a year to isolate the problem. To make matters worse due to my work schedule the vehicle may sit for a month or more at a time but often a week at a time usually with no drop in air pressure. But sometimes it would leak. Took the tyre in to have fixed several more times thinking I had marked the right spot on the tyre but repairers could not find the slightest leak with the tyre off or on the vehicle. I realised it must be something located so that it only leaked when the the tyre was stopped in a certain position on it. So next time it tyre went down I pumped it up - and sprayed detergent all over the lower portion of the tyre and rim - nothing!! By now I was so over it I grabbed a shovel and made a 15cm bund/ dam around the tyre (no point removing the tyre) and filled it water......and there it was!!! A tiny stream of bubbles floating up about 8-10cm up on the sidewall - out of interest I moved the vehicle back an inch or two and checked the leak - Nothing!!! .... but now having marked the source of the bubbles the tyre place could find the problem. They extracted a 6 cm splinter of iron hard wood out of the tyre - it would only let air past when it had pressure on it in a specific position. - problem solved.