Conquest Rims and tires, leaking with tracks

[Midtveit]

Hi

So with the old plastic tracks I need to have around 4-5 PSI in my old style (carlisle) tires. The rims are a bit rusty and I ahve tried to put in tubes, but find that the rim rotate without the tyre and rips the tube appart.

So a better solution would be getting rid of the rust and and try bead seal when mounting them. Although I am not sure that would fix the problem of leaking air, does anyone have any experience?

I could ofcourse buy new tires and rims, but they are kind of expensive and only used for tracks in the winter I need my bearclaw tires in the summer.

Is there any other tricks I could try to keep my old tyres and rims alive for track usage ?

Regards
Knut

[Mike]

You could dismount the tires and wire brush the wheels, paying close attention to the bead area. Then, paint the wheels and remount the tires. The only thing you really risk is that the beads on the tires could be damaged if the wheels are in really bad shape and then, even with cleaned and painted wheels, you would still have air leaking out. Another option you have is to put a product called Slime in the wheel/tire and see if it will seal. Sometimes that will work.

[Coast2Coast]

I've been fighting the leaking bead issue for months since I bought my 97 conquest. Every tire had a tube in it when I bought it but all of the valve stems were on an angle from the rim spinning in the tire and half of them were leaking. I've dismounted them and removed the tubes because they're pretty useless unless you want to run 5+ PSI and bounce around on the trial like your on wooden wagon wheels.

I would not reccommend tire slime for a leaking bead. Maybe for an old tire with a lot of slow leaks along the tread, but the slime will not get to the bead if you use as directed. I did try to seal just the beads with slime once by breaking the beads and applying the slime to the beads just before seating them, but it didn't work.

The best solution I've found was to go to an auto service supply shop (Napa here in my locale) and get a big can of Tire Bead Sealant from them. On 3 of 4 tires this did the trick. I applied a ton of the bead sealant just before seating the beads and it is still holding after a couple trips. One of them still has a slow leak but will last a day at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wewXD5mjbU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt-_yGqktBY

Be careful when you seat the bead with bead sealer applied. It will come flying out when the bead pops on and hit your ceiling/walls and you need to be wearing eye protection.

My most stubborn tire I dismounted the tire off the rim and smoothed the bead seating surfaces out with an angle grinder with a flapper wheel till they look like mirrors. They are so pitted though, they still won't hold air even with the bead sealer for more than a day. The next step from this is to try using an epoxy like JB Weld or Devcon. Heat it up so that it flows better and apply it to the pitted bead surface of the wheel after removing the rust with the wire wheel or whatever. You only want it to go into the pits, so you're applying it like you would apply crack fill to a wall and wiping the excess away quickly before it starts to dry. Then once cure time is reached, paint the bead with spray paint. It's pretty much re-constructive surgery for your rims, take your time and do it right the first time.

You may be able to do all this on one bead at a time without dismounting the tire if you just use a couple clamps to squeeze the tire away from the bead. I know it takes me longer to dismount and remount the tires on the wheels than anything and I absolutley swear up a storm trying to do it. Some ATV tires will practically come off and on the wheel by hand, but not my 22" runamucks, I could barely manage with huge tire irons designed for tractor trailer tires.

If you notice that the rubber bead surface of the tire itself is all chewed up, then that's probably the problem rather than the wheel itself. In this case your last ditch effort is to buy a tube of windshield sealant that's used to install windshields. Apply it nice and thick to the bead area and pop them on. This is used in the 4x4 community as a cheap "bead lock" solution so you can air down your truck tires to 5PSI without popping the beads off the tire all the time on the trail. Be warned though, your tires will be permanently bonded to your wheels and you will have to cut them off to remove them down the road.

[Dan67]

Another product you can use I've had success with is also avaible at your local auto parts house. Permatex High Tack Gasket Sealant. Clean the rim good, paste it on and air the tire until the beads pop. It will also keep the tire from spinning on the rim.

[hydromike]

Another product you can use I've had success with is also avaible at your local auto parts house. Permatex High Tack Gasket Sealant. Clean the rim good, paste it on and air the tire until the beads pop. It will also keep the tire from spinning on the rim.

Agreed. Outside of getting new rims, glue the snot out of them with Super High Tack. It can be a bit of a mess if you roll a tire off the bead on the trail and have to get it back on. The Permatex will attract dirt, vegetation, small children, family pets etc. which is darn near impossible to clean up without some solvent on the trail. It's not the ideal fix, but it'll get you by if you decide you're not in the market for rims just yet.

[Midtveit]

Thanks for god suggestions, the windshield sealand might be a god choice.
It is normally silicone based and man not fasten well to rubber, i phoned a supplier and they where scheptical.
Another glui sticky option that might be both sealing and sticky enough to stop rims spin could be bitumen the kind of asfalt/Tarmac like stuff that is used under cars to protect from rust.
Probably need bitumen based inky and not the vax based.

Probably don't work in hot summer conditions but in winter on snow it might.

I think I will try bead seal first :-)

[JohnF]

Hello again Midveit,

It's impossible to get the tires all exactly the same diameter. The chain fixes the axles to the exact same rotation and the track and tires are trying to do the same but at perhaps different ratios. The design of the system is supposed to relieve the stress by letting the tires spin inside the track.

When I got mine it had 11 inch wide knobby tires (not part of the system design) which resist spinning inside the track so the stress would eventually relieve itself by spinning the tire on the wheel. Add a little snow for lubrication and I couldn't do a trip without having to reseat tires when I got home. Spin a tire enough and heat up the bead and it won't seat as well anymore. The bead sealer sealed the beads well but didn't prevent the spinning. The permatex solution has ended spinning problems for me but every now and then I have had a chain jump a sprocket tooth (worse than tire spinning). This last winter I got the 10 inch wide runamucks (the tires designed in the system) and new wheels but haven't had a chance to run them yet. Oh, I have the plastic supertracks.

[Noel Woods]

There are several issues involved, the tires spinning on the wheel can be sealed with Permatex or a similar tire glue.
The other issue is chain wind-up, which is common to 8 wheelers. when you run tracks it can be avoided by using track tuners on the middle axles. The downside is that if you throw a track, you go down to having only the front and rear tires being driven, and if your in the boonies it may be hard to get back. Which would necessitate fitting the track back on in the field, so bring a ratchet strap and tools to be prepared and you will get your hands dirty. I speak from experience.