Following my various questions over the last few days and taking on the advice of the wise tubeless STW community, yesterday I tried to fit my first tubeless tyre…

However, I was lazy and in a rush and so didn’t follow all the right steps (I followed the instructions on the back of the bottle rather than watching the video). The main mistake seem to be I didn’t use washing up liquid (I know, stupid – but the bottle didn’t say anything and I was at my lbs so didn’t have any handy!)

Anyway, it inflated fine and seemed to seal (I was initially quite chuffed) but within a few hours the pressure had dropped significantly. I pumped it up again but when I got up this morning it had gone down again…

So, my question is – what do I do now? Do I literally start all over again? (With washing up liquid!) Or what?

My other wheel is my lbs being trued and so the guy there is going to have a go at setting that one up this afternoon for me, so we’ll see how he gets on…

If I do start over again, will it be ok – the tire will be covered in the latex stuff from the first go – are there any problems with this?

I could really do with some advice!

Thanks!

Keep pumping it up, shaking it & checking for leaks [as in the Stan’s video] it should come good

hi mm once on and inflated with the sealant in i find shaking and spinning and rolling it around , basically all over the place the best option (other than going for a ride)

my latest tubeless set up was leaking out over a day or so no matter what i di so i stuck in another 80ml of sealant and went for a ride round stainburn and its held solid since 😉

good luck 😉 my wheels still havent turned up ;-(

Yeah? Cool! (I haven’t watched the whole video yet so hence my ignorance.) Although, how many times do I do this before admitting it hasn’t worked?

As uplink suggests, if still goes down try riding around for 10 mins at a really low pressure to open up the tiny holes and allow the sealant to get in – the do the shakey-shakey routine again.

Thanks Firestarter. I’m kinda wishing I hadn’t wacked so much latex in there to start with! Will add some if needed though – cheers. (V glad I don’t necessarily have to start over!)

Ok – thanks Pippalarge – I’ll try that too! What constitues ‘really low pressure?’ (I’m 7.5 stone)

you dont need to add more sealant, just put the wheel in the bath to find leaking areas then tilt the wheel so the sealant flows to that area and seals it rep eat as many times as you need 🙄

10-15 psi? As long as you’re not riding on the rims you’ll be ok – just ride up and down the street a few times.

Did you invert the bottle of gloop and hold your finger over the spout to allow the sealing particles to gather at the bottom before putting the sealant into the tyre? If not you might not of got enough particles into the tyre. Again watching the video shows this

The washing up liquid thing is more to help get the initial seal and to show up leaks so omitting it doesn’t sound the problem as you got it inflated (albeit now losing pressure). Worth inflating them though and covering in soapy water to show up where the leak is.
As others have said it’s also important to swill the sealant around (once tyre is inflated) so it covers the entire inner circumference (inc. rim area), I forgot to do this on my rear last time and it lost a lot of pressure overnight, swilling it around the next day and it’s held the same pressure for 3 weeks now.
I also had a tiny leak around the valve on both mine which needed a bit more shaking about the sealant in that area until it stopped.

Once it’s up, you need to ride it. Sloshing the stuff around won’t work. You need to go for at least one ride, possibly more with some tyres to fully get sealant into all the pores in the tyre.

My Kenda Nevegals wouldn’t hold pressure overnight until about three or four rides. Now they are inflated for good.

Even worse is trying to seal small block 8’s… nightmare !

It takes a few weeks to seal them .

Im going to take a few pics and do a “how to got cheapo tubless” on here so watch out for it .

it will be tubeless for less than $30 .

already do it for about 60p a wheel including stans sealant, planning to get it down to about 15p a weel in the near future 😆

So 15p is 30c , impossible matey .

1L of stans costs at least 10quid , so 100ml in a tyre is 1 quid at the least … nevermind the non-tubeless rim conversion.

I put about 60ml per tyre hence 60p,buying latex and making your own sealant is next on my list which will bring the price down a lot. my tubeless conversion costs nothing as it uses things i have lying around like gaffer tape, insulating tape and valves from old innertubes, 😆 do the maths ozzybmx 😆

Place the wheel on top a bucket so it lies flat and leave it for 10 minutes. Swish sealant around, turn it over and leave again for 10. Repeat 5 or 6 times. I had the same problems as you, then I watched the video which demonstrated this technique. No problems since.

Righty my friend , im talking buying tubeless valves and doing it right , its way cheaper than buyins stans rim tapes and all that .

We go tubeless for reliability , i have a 2l tub of liquid latex here and im not including it as “laying around” , im using stans and proper tubeless valves . Most of us here have spent a LOT of money on our bikes and want something reliable , latex does not have the microfibres that stans does …. but i still put a spoonful of latex in to seal awkward tyres .

Gaffer and insulating tape does not cut the cheese , you need 3M packing tape to last . i will post a “HOW TO” soon .

I dont need the maths mate , WE need the proper/reliable way to take a shortcut.

Monkey – you might have read about my troubles on here, but I was having difficulty getting the tyres inflated. They didn’t hold their air that well and the first ride was abandoned as they just wouldn’t stay up. After the first ride they went completely flat overnight.

I put more sealant in, more shaking, rode around a bit, more shaking etc. they seem to be OK now. Just keep going with the shaky thing and you’ll get there.

I put more sealant in, more shaking, rode around a bit, more shaking etc. they seem to be OK now. Just keep going with the shaky thing and you’ll get there.

Correct , if you get a hard to seal set of tyres , its just a bit of time needed to seal them , ride-inflate-shake ride-inflate-shake , if it takes lomger tham 2 weeks add some more stans.

Dont use Stans, use Justridinalong wheel milk instead.
Worked for me.

We go tubeless for reliability , i have a 2l tub of liquid latex here and im not including it as “laying around” , im using stans and proper tubeless valves . Most of us here have spent a LOT of money on our bikes and want something reliable , latex does not have the microfibres that stans does …. but i still put a spoonful of latex in to seal awkward tyres .

well its been very reliable for me on 3 sets of wheels for the past 4 months, rather than rubbishing something which goes against your percieved only way of doing it- why not give it a try or accept they are much cheaper alternatives that work and dont need new vales, rimstrips or bmx tubes. I sill use stans at the moment but will look at making my own mixture when I run out. there is a reliable way to do it cheap

remind me why I like tubes?

remind me why I like tubes?

Cos you’re one of those perverse people that likes stopping every few miles to fix a puncture whilst out on the trail!

Some tubeless systems are easier than others (proper UST rims and tyres is the easiest by a mile), but all of them offer significant benefits over running inner tubes. Not least of which you’re immune to punctures!

MountainMonkey. What system are you using? Stans? Ghetto? UST?

For what it’s worth, CLEAN EVERYTHING THOROUGHLY before hand. Use lots of soapy water, in fact use lots of “watery soap”. Fit the tyres whilst everything is wet and soapy, in fact the soapier the better. Jump on the trackpump/use a compressor to quickly get the tyre up ASAP. DON’T put any sealant in yet. Make sure the tyre seals, then deflate it. Remove the valve core (if you don’t have a valve core remover already, can be bought for about £2 from Halfords) and inject sealant through the valve. Re-insert valve core, and pump up to 50psi or so. Then shake it about lots, turn around, upside down etc. Leave it a bit, go back and check the pressure. Pump back up to 50psi or so, do it again.

Leave overnight, go back, if tyre has held pressure then all’s well. If not, then repeat the pumping/shaking procedure again til fully sealed. FWIW, some tyres take forever to seal, some seal instantly (Bontrager TR tyres are very good for this, as are Maxxis).

Regarding tyre pressures, even at 7.5 stone everything is relative. What I mean by that is how wide are the tyres you’re using, are you riding XC or DH, are they thin walled or extra thick casing tyres, do you ride light or do you crash into things? If you can provide some info on the tyres you’re using, and the type of riding you do, can then give you some starting points regarding pressure. I’m about 12 stone, I run about 40-45psi in a 2″ XC tyre, 35-40psi in a 2.2″ XC tyre, 30-35psi in a 2.35″ freeride tyre, and about 25-30psi in a 2.5″ DH tyre. Generally only vary the pressures slightly according to ground conditions beyond what I’ve stated above. At 7.5 stone, I’d look to probably run 30% less pressure (or therabouts) than I am at 12 stone, so if you’re using a 2″ XC tyre go with about 30psi, a 2.2″ about 26psi, a 2.35 about 22psi, a 2.5 tyre about 18psi. Or something like that anyway…

funny, UST “just works” 😉

Hi again guys. Thanks so much for all the help and advice! I was quite overwhelmed by all the support!

Anyway, I hope you’ll be glad to hear that it worked! Despite being pretty lazy with intial set up (not cleaning stuff properly, not using washing up liquid and failing to follow a number of instructions) it still worked in the end!

I used almost all the tips you guys gave about re-sealing the tyre: First I put the tyre in the bath to find the leak, then did the shaky thing, then I pumped it up and rode it around a bit, then did the shaky thing again. Then I did the bucket thing and shaky thing again and again and – it’s worked!

I think the combination of knowing where the leak was and using the bucket thing to seal that side area, probably made the biggest difference – but the combination of all your tips seems to have done the trick nicely with the wheel not loosing any pressure over night.

Seems to have sealed very nicely now! (I hope!)

For what it’s worth though, I have learnt my lesson and next time I’m going to follow all the tips and do it properly from the start (I feel a bit stupid for rushing the whole thing).

oh and btw, the guy at my lbs got the other one fitted no hassle apparently – nice! He’s a bit of a legend as he did it for free too!

So I now have two working tubeless tyres and I’m very much looking forward to trying them out this weekend.

In reponse to the questions, I’m running standard Kendas on Stans rims using Stans no tubes sealant. Kenda 2.0 blue groove on the front and Kenda nevegal 1.95 on the rear. (So was a bit anxious when they were quoted as being some of the worst to seal!)

They’re reasonably wide for their stated width (more like Panaracer 2.1) so I thought I’d run them at about 25psi or possibly 30 – depending on how they feel.

mboy – I’m not sure how I rise to be honest. I’d say I’m reasonably accurate and delicate, but I do have my lazy moments of just sort rolling into that root rather than lifting the front wheel. I’m not too fussed about running really low pressures so am happy to aire on the side of caution with 30 psi, if you reckon that’s a good plan?

Thanks again everyone – let’s hope they’re worth it!