"Emergency puncture repair" aerosols

[Travis]

In the boot of my wife's car is a can of emergency puncture repair
stuff. In one action it reinflates the tire and fills it with some
sort of puncture sealing stuff which does a "get you home, or to the
nearest service station" repair job on the tire.

The label says "not suitable for use on motorcycles or other two
wheeled vehicles".

Has anyone tried this stuff on a bicycle and had a good/bad/indifferent
experience using it?

 

[DaveB]

Travis wrote:
> In the boot of my wife's car is a can of emergency puncture repair
> stuff. In one action it reinflates the tire and fills it with some
> sort of puncture sealing stuff which does a "get you home, or to the
> nearest service station" repair job on the tire.
>
> The label says "not suitable for use on motorcycles or other two
> wheeled vehicles".
>
> Has anyone tried this stuff on a bicycle and had a good/bad/indifferent
> experience using it?
>

Have used it on the motorbike (unsuccessfully because the hole was too
big), so can't comment on how effective it is. But can say once you get
the tyre off to fix the puncture that stuff is absolutely FOUL!!

DaveB

 

[Zebee Johnstone]

In aus.bicycle on 9 Mar 2006 09:09:54 -0800
Travis <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> The label says "not suitable for use on motorcycles or other two
> wheeled vehicles".

used it on my motorcycle anyway. Worked well.

Sure, the tube was cactus afterwards and the tyre needed cleaning
inside but it wasn't too bad to clean up after.

I think that warning is there because if it doesn't work and the tyre
deflates then the consequences aren't nice. But riding on it was fine
as far as I was concerned.

I believe you can get something vaguely similar for pushbikes,
although as a preventative not a cure. Umm.. "slime" or something?
goes into the tube and seals the puncture when it happens.

There's also http://www.notubes.com/

Zebee

 

[Travis]

Zebee Johnstone wrote:
> In aus.bicycle on 9 Mar 2006 09:09:54 -0800
> Travis <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > The label says "not suitable for use on motorcycles or other two
> > wheeled vehicles".
>
> used it on my motorcycle anyway. Worked well.
>
> Sure, the tube was cactus afterwards and the tyre needed cleaning
> inside but it wasn't too bad to clean up after.

Was the tube ruined by the sealant or by whatever punctured your tube
in the first place?

I was wondering if it would be any good as a permanent repair for
bikes. Its just a temporary repair for cars, but presumably the forces
on a car tire are greater than those on a bicycle.

If it actually ruins the tube then I'll stick with slime tire liners
(see below).
>
> I think that warning is there because if it doesn't work and the tyre
> deflates then the consequences aren't nice. But riding on it was fine
> as far as I was concerned.
>
> I believe you can get something vaguely similar for pushbikes,
> although as a preventative not a cure. Umm.. "slime" or something?
> goes into the tube and seals the puncture when it happens.

Yep, I've got slime tire liners. I wanted to put the slime liquid
straight into my tires but it wasn't compatible with road bike tube
valves. The LBS guy tried but failed to put it in.

The tube liners supposedly are "guaranteed" to protect against
punctures. It excludes sidewall punctures and pinch punctures, though
if you get a puncture on the rolling surface of the tube they'll
replace the tube and give you a new tire liner. I didn't read the fine
print though and am not sure if its available outside the US.

You can also get pre-slimed tubes, which the LBS said were excellent.
Problem was that these tubes (at least the ones he had in stock) had
short stems and weren't compatible with my thicker rims.

http://www.slime.com/bike/index.php

 

[Peter McCallum]

Zebee Johnstone <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think that warning is there because if it doesn't work and the tyre
> deflates then the consequences aren't nice. But riding on it was fine
> as far as I was concerned.

There was a court case many many years ago where, from aging memory, a
motorcyclist used this stuff and it didn't spread evenly around the
tyre, making it very unstable at speed. As a result he lost control and
was very badly injured. Aparantly the results aren't so bad if you have
three other tyres. The motorcyclist sued not only the manufacturer but
also the retailer, which made the case newsworthy. Since then there have
been more explicit instructions and warnings on the can. You have to
travel reasonably fast to develop enough cetrifugal force to spread the
goo evenly around the inside of the tube. Maybe a bicycle doesn't do
that.

Peter
--
Peter McCallum
Mackay Qld AUSTRALIA

 

[SomeGuy]

In the boot of my wife's car is a can of emergency puncture repair
stuff. In one action it reinflates the tire and fills it with some
sort of puncture sealing stuff which does a "get you home, or to the
nearest service station" repair job on the tire.

The label says "not suitable for use on motorcycles or other two
wheeled vehicles".

Has anyone tried this stuff on a bicycle and had a good/bad/indifferent
experience using it?

Geax make a similar product for bicycles: http://www.geax.com/prodgeax/accessori.htm

The latex seals the hole (for 'up to 12 hours') and I assume it is propelled by CO2. I've seen a few guys carrying them at MTB races, although I don't know of anyone who has used one.

 

[Paulie-AU]

I used to make my own tubeless DH tyre systems using 40ml liquid latex and 40ml water mixed and put in the tyre. This would then seal the non tubeless tyre and alow me to ride with no fear of pinchflats. When it was relativly fresh it would also reseal after a stick or something went through the tyre as long as you helped it by putting your finger over the hole. Or putting the hole at the lowest point so all the laytex ran there.

You could mix some into a syringe and then inject it into a road tube and the let the mixture patch the hole or patch it with a traditional patch. Not sure how long it would remain liquid for though.

You can purchase liquid latex from costume stores.

If was a good experiment (about 2 years) but in the end I went back to tubes and increased my pressures a little.

 

[Terry Collins]

Travis wrote:

> Has anyone tried this stuff on a bicycle and had a good/bad/indifferent
> experience using it?

Yes, failure.

My 2c Works on a car tyre because there is about 1-2cm of rubber for it
to plug up. Doesn't work on a bicycle or motorcycle tube because there
is only 1-2mm of rubber to plug so the seal keeps breaking.

And if it does work, only at low pressure (un rideable for me).

 

[slaw]

Geax make a similar product for bicycles: http://www.geax.com/prodgeax/accessori.htm

The latex seals the hole (for 'up to 12 hours') and I assume it is propelled by CO2. I've seen a few guys carrying them at MTB races, although I don't know of anyone who has used one.

I have tried something similar for bikes from Michelin called Stop And Go. It's basically a small pressurised canister with some sort of sealant. I tried it on a UST tyre that wasn't holding air and it didn't help, but that was probably because the bead hadn't sealed properly so a sealant that works more on the tread area wasn't going to help anyway. So based on my experience I can't really say if it would work for punctures. The can does say it is meant to work with tubed or tubeless tyres.

I know have some sealant in my tubeless tyres which I got from Autobahn. It is an Aus made product that is meant to seal holes up to 6mm, and it's the same flouro green as Slime. I think it works as I haven't had a flat since installing it and I think it helps to seal the bead as well. My front tyre has several bright green spots which always seem present, but I'm not losing much air - maybe a few psi over a couple of weeks. They always seem to be damp so I don't know that the solids in the mix have really plugged whatever holes are there.