Fixing flats, tubeless, plus hole-plugs and CO2 cylinders?

Or wash them out; slime is water soluble.

Baron said:

....slime tubes in my experience always seem to clog up the shrader valve after about 6 months to a year. it becomes almost impossible to drain/add air to it. pumping it up seems to work up to a point, seemingly about 30 psi in mine. but the psi gauge is waaay off on my pump, probably because it has to fight so much harder to force air into there. so there's no way of knowing the exact psi in the tire. anyone have a fix for shrader valves getting clogged?

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Just unscrew the core, clean it (or replace, they'll give you a handful at most tire shops) and clean the stem out with a pipe cleaner.

I've got fat tire tubes (4.7") with presta valves. I find slime very hit or miss and have since accepted the wisdom of others and converted to stan's. Haven't had a flat since and only check the air every month or two. I've literally gone through sets of tires with no flats and you all should see how many pokey things are in the tires/tubes when I replace them! Stan's is *much* more aggressive about clogging the valve though, especially a presta but it's no big deal to clean it out.

Slime sort of turns into a little fibrous ball - stan's is much more like rubber cement. Stan's is much more expensive and much nastier (use gloves and good ventilation!) but I find it's in a whole different world when it comes to sealing the tire up.

YMMV...

Baron said:

slime tubes in my experience always seem to clog up the shrader valve after about 6 months to a year. it becomes almost impossible to drain/add air to it. pumping it up seems to work up to a point, seemingly about 30 psi in mine. but the psi gauge is waaay off on my pump, probably because it has to fight so much harder to force air into there. so there's no way of knowing the exact psi in the tire. anyone have a fix for shrader valves getting clogged?

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Yeah, you have to be meticulous about having the valve at the right position when inflating. Well, at least schrader valves are easy to unscrew and clean.

I used to use Slime, but it did not work at all with skinny high pressure tires (or pinch flats that skinny tires get).

I now use latex - Orange seal (which eliminates some of the problems stan has).

Slime does have the advantage that it will not dry out in a tube. Latex (like stans) needs to be refreshed every 6 months or so).

chas58 said:

....Latex (like stans) needs to be refreshed every 6 months or so).

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True that.... but my tires only last 8-9mo's so everything needs refreshed at that point

Hmmmm ... just looked at that puncture tonight. It is much worse that I thought. This puncture is a cut is more than 1/4" long. I planned on replacing this rather cheap tire anyway, but will now do it sooner. I should probably patch the tire in the meantime though. The inner tube is causing this little slit to bulge. Not good.

wow, quite the slash. Impressive that the sealant plugged it.

Certainly you don't want dirt getting inside the tire or near the tube where abrasion could be a problem. that and you don't want that crack to grow.

chas58 said:

wow, quite the slash. Impressive that the sealant plugged it.

Certainly you don't want dirt getting inside the tire or near the tube where abrasion could be a problem. that and you don't want that crack to grow.

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Yeah. I was a bit surprised it was that big. Slime sealed it in a matter of seconds. You can hear it do so in the video. I think rotating the puncture down low helped. I got home on it and have made one more round trip on it (32 miles) and it has held fine. No loss in pressure beyond normal. But continuing to ride on it seems a bad idea. I'll patch the tire tonight and order some new, "real" tires as well.

It looks like a glass puncture; probably from a cube of automotive window glass.

Whenever I've had those (that slime could seal) the tire was badly sliced, but the tube just had a poke, sometimes two or three pinholes in a row.

The ones it couldn't seal were actual slices into the tube. Only thing I've ever gotten to seal those was an external patch of one type or another.

Turns out it was a slit about 3/16" long. Here's a photo of the slit and the fibrous "clot" that I squeezed out of it prior to patching.

Looks like a booger.

that's impressive. I've pulled larger things out of my tubes and had them seal with slime, but they all left smaller actual holes.
How much pressure would you guess you still had in the tube?

Drunkskunk said:

that's impressive. I've pulled larger things out of my tubes and had them seal with slime, but they all left smaller actual holes.
How much pressure would you guess you still had in the tube?

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The tire probably was at about 60 psi when it punctured and probably had 15-20 psi when it sealed. I rode about two blocks on it and it was ride-able. But with about two miles to go, I decided to pump it up a bit - probably 40-50 psi with my (non-CO2) hand pump before going further. Later that day when I pumped it up a tad more for the ride home I noticed it had dripped out a couple drops of slime. But it was till holding pressure.

I too am surprised it sealed that kind of a slit. I doubt you could count on it to do that. I'm guessing that perhaps the slit in the tube misaligned a bit with the slit in the tire, slowing down the air escape and giving the clot a chance to form ... or not. Either way, it was nice that it worked given that a flat in the same tire had me walking about three miles a few days earlier.