At my first attempt at tubeless, having seated the tyre and inflated to 30psi I was surprised to see foaming bubbles (presumably due to the washing-up liquid used to seat the tyre) at various points all the way around and on both sides of my rim-tyre interface. The bubbles continued for a couple of hours and I kept re-inflating.

Is this ‘normal’ for a Flow rim? I suspect not.

The tyre is a single-ply, folding High Roller 2.35 few months old, but not been used that much. The sidewall is a bit ‘textured’ (kevlar cloth under the rubber?) all the way around, close to the bead.

I deflated, added more sealant and re-inflated. After a couple of hours, there were a lot of bubbles.

I then inflated the tyre harder and left overnight. This morning the tyre was flat and wouldn’t re-inflate -due to air escaping around the valve this time.

Second attempt later.

Did you use any sealant? Also have a watch of the videos on the stans site

I used some tractor tyre sealant (with granules in it), painted it onto the tyre bead, added it to the tyre and did the things suggested on the various videos. Mucho shaking, rotating etc. etc.

Gorilla tape rather than Stans stuff.

I’ll re-tape the valve, clean the rim and tyre again and attempt to perform the black magic later.

The bubbles tell you where the air is escaping – this is where you need to slosh the sealant about to seal the tiny holes, as per the Stan’s video.

If you haven’t already, after sloshing about, try leaving the wheel sat on its side with the centre in a bucket so that the sidewalls get good coverage with the sealant. Failing that, try a different sealant – I’m not familiar with the tractor stuff so don’t know how effective it is in comparison to Stans etc.

Pump it up.
Go ride.
???
Marvel at the still-inflated tyre, and wonder what the problem was in the first place.

Seriously.

(Either that or your tractor sealant is junk)

You need more than 30psi to get the bead to snap into place. At least 40 psi and ride it over some pot-holes should get in into place – look really carefully at the bead/rim interface – is it symmetrical? If not, it’s not snapped in.

If there are bubbles coming out of the side-wall then sealant will need time to fill the tiny voids.

When I used to do ‘Ghetto Tubeless’ with non-UST Nevegals I used to get little fountains of sealant pi$$ing out of the porous bead/sidewall interface for 24 hours.

Bad experiences with non-UST lead me to go proper UST and haven’t looked back. Tempted to do wire SP HR ST 3.5s though as can’t find UST ones.

New tyres always inflate better than used ones. Did you give the tyre a GOOD clean before hand?

Firstly I wouldn’t have bothered with washing up liquid, all it does is mess with the sealant. Secondly is it a LUST version? If not save yourself some hassle later and do it properly now. Thirdly it will just bubble for a while the way you’ve done it, it’s then just down to the sealant to set in the gaps and make it air tight. I have no clue what tractor tyre sealant is like but maybe you should have bought bike tyre sealant (unless you have a Pugsley)?
I probably sound like a dick but 99.99999% of tubeless issues are caused by people ghettoing some part of the process. For some ghetto works and they save a bit of money but personally I’d spend a bit more and save the hassles…

Cheers folks.

To seat the tyre I used a DIY pop bottle inflator which seated the tyre fairly vigorously. I subsequently reduced the pressure to 30 psi.

The bubbles are visible at the join between the bead and the tyre.

I’d expected the Flow rim to give a fairly good seal with the tyre due to the profile of the rim.

The sealant is This stuff:

The washing up liquid was to test if the tyre would seat before trying the sealant. I didn’t wash it out afterwards. I’m intending to clean the wheel and tyre again to remove the washing up liquid before my next attempt.

Conversely the only way I could get my tyres to seal was to use loads of washing up liquid.

Comments above also held true – pump them to 40psi to ‘pop’ the tyre onto the bead and go ride it around for a bit.

I have had a problem with loose beads on that tyre. This was with tubes, they slipped and ripped out valves. So it maybe that a tighter tyre would be better…

I wouldn’t expect it to work with the Gorilla tape and that sealant is another random factor. I’ve never had a problem with maxxis tyres on stans rims, using the yellow tape and stans sealant, LUST ones go on so easily you’ll laugh out loud but not had a problem with regular maxxis either.

+ 1 about the sealant

This is the key on flow rims, basically wet the tyre bead/rim with fair liquid preffereably the bubbles more so than liquid…..

Put the tyre on one side of the rim….add sealant ( I just add the full two cups worth at this point….now put the tyre on the other side of rim,…try and put pressure on the tyre to get it in the groove area of rim all the way round…..now gently in your hands spin the wheel around so the sealant is getting around all the nooks and crannys of the tyre bead/rim interface….

Now put the valve back in and pump like a biatch…..you will see It start to pop etc but still may be escaping some air….at this point whilst its still semi inflated but going down pick wheel up and spin in hands again….for me It’s usually escaping near the valve so make sure to slosh there and get plenty of sealant around it…..then pump like mad and it should be doing it less now the sealant has attacked the holes….then pump getting it to seat / POP and spin in hands like mad getting rid of the final few escaping bits of air…..pump up to about 40 psi ther just spin it for a bit…..deflated to required psi and awaaaaay the lads

On proper UST rims I never once had to add sealant first, just used to put fairy up liquid and they would go straight away, that was the beauty of UST proper rims, flows are abit more faff as the sealant plays a big part even just seating the tyre, on UST rims for Me that wasn’t required other than for puncture protection

HTH

Ps that exact routine worked for me on Tuesday night on flow rims

Ps as above also save yourself more aggro and just use proper UST tyres!

Gorilla Tape is what ENVE supply with their rims. There was a Pink Bike article recently where they tried it to see if it was a myth or not. Actually works very well.

I’ve decided that my sealant is quite possibly not latex (I can’t find a datasheet) and is more like Tyre slime. It is also thicker than the Stan’s stuff on the videos.

I could dilute it and, failing that, continue being DIY by buying some latex. Alternatively, I could just give-in and buy some Stan’s sealant….
Which, according to the datasheet, is actually only:

Propylene Glycol (ie. A type of anti-freeze, presumably for winter rides) 20 – 40%
Natural Latex 15 – 30%
Water makes up the remainder

Propylene Glycol (ie. A type of anti-freeze, presumably for winter rides) 20 – 40%
Natural Latex 15 – 30%
Water makes up the remainder

that sounds perfect

Never used washing up liquid, I can see it might make things a little easier but it’s not required, nor is adding sealant before seating the tyre (TBH fitting a tyre to my Flows is exactly the same as fitting a tyre to my 819s, no difference in difficulty or technique at all, provided the tape’s not damaged anyway as that makes things trickier)

A little bit of foaming around the tyre’s totally normal, it doesn’t always happen but it can, and not neccesarily anything to worry about. I reckon you’re possibly overthinking it.

There was actually a lot of foaming around the tyre.

It appears that the sealant (akin to Slime) was too viscous to slosh about in the tyre.

Having removed the tyre, re-taped the rim and bought some ‘latex’ (acrylic for mixing with mortar rather than natural latex, due to local availability on Saturday pm) solution (mixing it with the tractor sealant) and re-installed, there was an instant inflation, with only a tiny amount of foaming. Shaking the wheel seemed to plug the gaps.

Pumping it up again, the tyre, sat in the garage had held 40psi for ~36hrs this morning, although the residue of sealant on the outside of the bend was still moist/tacky in places.

I’ve no idea if it will work on the trail….or kill my tyre…

With hindsight I should have bought some Stan’s for this first attempt at tubeless.

25mm Gorilla tape works really well on flows, but with any tape the rim needs to be really CLEAN and DRY. Make sure no water is in rim cavity, and IPA before applying tape is a good idea. Make sure the little side holes on the outside of the rim are covered aswell. I’ve always used Stans sealant and never had a problem with it apart from when its really really cold and wouldnt seal.

If it stays up in the garage you should be fine when riding.

so you are using a rim that requires tape and a tyre designed for a tube.

i know you paid a lot of money, but seems just like any ghetto setup to me – and hence the faff.

Yes, I used 25mm of Gorilla Tape. Pressed firmly and carefully onto the rim to prevent bubbles.

A static 40psi is one thing, but bashing against a rock/kerb is another. I’ll try it outside later.

ps. I had the rim and tyre on the bike anyway, previously used tubed. I bought some sealant and ‘latex’. If it works my homebrew sealant cost less than a litre of Stan’s and will do a lot of tyres.

Stans Sealant now ordered…..

I used the same tyre/rim combo and had same problem.

Washing up liquid smeared round the bead solved it. Used Joe’s or Stan’s fluid also.

soobalias – Member

i know you paid a lot of money, but seems just like any ghetto setup to me

Wrong… Stans + tape isn’t anything like a ghetto’d nontubeless rim. This approach is exactly like putting a standard tyre on an UST rim.

this works for me

Same rim, same tyre (or any tyre I’ve tried for that matter). Goes up and stays up first time every time, usually without bubbles.
Standard stans yellow tape underneath.
Stans sealant added through valve after seating.

Update:

Stans Sealant now installed.

With a bit of shaking the tyres appears to have sealed, although I’ve not tried riding it yet.

Filled with confidence, I ghetto’d (using the sliced BMX tube method) the WTB Weirwolf & non-tubeless Sun rim from the rear of my hardtail. After an initial leak through a small hole in the tyre, following a bit of spinning and shaking, the tyre now appears to be holding 40 psi.

Nice one.

I’ll try one of the tubeless setups on a ride later this week.

Sometimes I find riding it is the only thing that works to really seal some tyres and punctures. Spent forever at CyB recently trying to get a 5mm cut to seal, eventually gave up and rode down the fire road at super slow speed- 5mins later it had sealed like a champ!