What to do if you can’t get the tyre bead to seal when trying to re-inflate a tubeless tyre?
Its’ 35 degrees in the shade, you’ve just spent the last 20 minutes or so getting the damaged tyre off the rim and putting the new tyre on to the rim.
You fire up your 12v compressor and have a go trying to get enough air into the tyre to get the bead to seal on to the rim, no luck, so you put a strap around the outside of the tyre and try to ‘squeeze’ the walls of the tire out so the bead seals on the rim – no matter what you do, your compressor just can’t get enough air into the tyre to make a difference!!
What do you do now?
Here is a tip that I learned from a professional tyre-fitter, and I have heard that they use it in Canada to re-fit snowmobile tyres.
You get a SMALL amount of petrol, about a ¼ of a cup or less, and pour it around the tyre bead, so a small amount goes into the tyre.
IMPORTANT
Move yourself and the tyre
well clear of your vehicle and any nearby vegetation.
Do not have your jerry can anywhere near where you are working - it must be closed and at least 15 metres away from where you are working.
Do not have any spilt petrol on yourself or anywhere nearby to your work area.
Do not have any bystanders nearby.
Take the empty container that you had the petrol in, and put it about twenty metres away from your work area.
The next part of the operation, is to throw a lighted match at the tyre, the petrol and vapours around the tyre will explode with a ‘Whoosh’, and the tyre will inflate to about 30 psi and seal the bead instantly.
I have used this trick a number of times and it has always been successful, but it is very important to follow the safety directions that I have given, and only use a very small amount of petrol or gasoline on the tyre.
This trick can also be used if your compressor or pump fails and you have no other way of re-inflating a tyre.
It may be just the one tip that gets you out of a life-threatening situation in ‘The Outback’ one day!
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