I have a spare rim laying around and ill be putting a terracross on it shortly..coming from the whole atv/sxs background, im not looking forward to changing a tube and patching it on the trail, especially on the rear. Im a plug and air up type of guy.
I've been reading a few threads on adv rider about sealing off the spokes with goo, silicone, and wrapping it a few times with duct tape. I'm tempted to try this on the spare rim before i mount my terracross....but i would like a little more feed back from the guys on here before i go set the bead then find out she leaks...
Raise your hand if you've tried it...how did it turn out? Am i wasting my time? The adv guys have said it lasts a few years and several thousand road miles.
Now given i do have a flat with a tube on the terracross i could always limp it back to the truck since the sidewall is pretty stiff. but i am usually a good 100 miles away from anything and its no paved road either..
The only potential problem I can see with it is the fact that you sometimes need a lot of the the depth of the void in order to squeeze an ATV tire on initially. Would make mounting one even more of a bear than it already is, but once it was on there the first time dismounting hopefully becomes a memory til it wears out.
I'd leak test it initially with a stock tire just in case you had to do the mount/dismount thing a couple of times before it sealed.
Silicone is heavy, but a pretty weak argument once you slap on a 30 pound tire. Personally I'd prolly leave the front alone. Too easy to change to deal with all the added weight and the balancing issues. I've only done this on narrow rims and it took a lot of weight to compensate. The more perfectly you distribute the silicone the less this is so. Doing it in wheelstand would probably allow you to get it really even by rotating it. I did mine by eyeball on a garage floor.
Do it.
Edit: Actually I see one other problem. It's gunna be quite a struggle to get enough daylight out of the tighter ATV tire to get it to start to seat without a tube to push it. You might wanna try just wrapping the spoke nipples with duct tape first. Should be airtight enough to test whether or not bead seating is even possible before you do the silicone thing. We've been gabbing about doing this for ages, but this morning was the first time I'd given this possibility a thought. ATV rims are about 5/32 smaller in diameter than TW rims.
I wish we had one of those "eating popcorn" smilie thingies in here.
My ATV tire plans include a custom hub using the stock bearings, stock front rotor and caliper, and a 12x5 aluminum trailer or ATV wheel. There are a lot more tire choices for a 12x5 wheel. Greenball's distribution center is just 2 miles from me. I need to win the lottery.
Rumor has it there's a certain screwball working on just such a conversion, but for a 14" rim. At this point in time there are nearly enough useable 14" side-by-side tires to bypass the 12" wheel as the 14 also allows for an automotive tires. No reason you couldn't go 12" rim on the same setup, though. Stockton Wheel was the only company I knew of who could put spoke dimples into a bare steel car rim, which was my first thought, but it appears that they have recently closed shop.
A topic for another thread another time, but the challenge so far has been keeping said screwball from overthinking it. Ideally it would require the least amount of custom machining possible, use commonly available parts and with hope be at least marginally lighter than the stock pig. Pretty tall order.
Barring that going tubeless is the clear alternative.
Also, you might not get as far as you'd think on a dead-flat ATV tire. Awhile back I aired mine down on a ride with JS5owner and failed to notice that my valve core stuck open after I aired down. Within a short distance it was dead flat. Unrideable flat. Flatasastocktireflat. They aren't nearly as tough or as stiff as they seem when you're mounting them. Fortunately I was able to air it back up and unstick the valve core rather than dealing with an actual puncture. I doubt it would have gone more than a few miles before it shredded.
Well, I'm gonna do the rear disc, anyway. Not that I really need to, I'm quite easy on the rear brake. Tdub has 47,000 miles on her original pads, and they are only half gone. I have access to a machine shop with cutting-edge technology. I've drawn the hub in some unobtanium program my brother-in-law wrote to control a $1.5 million multi-axis, multi-head machine with integral laser measurements. It will take a chunk of aluminum and grind it so close the temperature of the part will determine it's measure. I may do a wheel, too. Motorcycle wheels can be signifcantly less massive than cars or trailers since they are not so susceptible to lateral forces. All it takes is money.
For now I'd like to see how Xdac's efforts pay off. Bombproof as my bike is at this point, the possibility of dealing with a punctured Bighorn solo and half way back of beyond is its one remaining limitation.
After mounting a terracross today im pretty sure the beads of the tire wouldn't hurt it. I watched the black rim strap a few times, it definitely would rub up against it during the mounting process that i use. that would tear or not would be the question. For now ill stick to my tube. If i start to have tire problems on the trail ill start playing around with sealing off the spokes. When i took off an old tw rear tire it was easier that i thought and could be done on the trail. Unfortunately when i mounted my tire i pinched the tube. So il have to wait for a new one from rocky mountain and try again. I was trying out the go pro again taking a picture every 2 seconds and put them in a video..i sure love this thing.
Maybe if you would've slowed down a little bit you wouldn't have pinched the tube...jk
Cool video; I've enjoyed your other videos as well. I think you'll enjoy the new tire, especially with the kind of riding you guys do. Let us know what you think after you've had a chance to try it out.
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