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Last night I picked up a small flint in a 'not very old' Racing Ralph that resulted in a small jizz fountain from the rear wheel. Good thing I had a rear mudguard fitted. Pumping the tyre with the hole at he bottom got it to hold air again, but only to 20ish psi, after which air would blow past the jizz plug. That got me to the end of the ride and back home again but it's not a long term solution.
Has anyone had any success patching the insides of tyres?
I've always just used anchovy type repairs and left them in. They last well.
Yes - patched a 15mm slice just before a race in May last year, hoping it would get me through 4hrs of riding. I wasn't overly optimistic, but didn't have another tyre to hand.
It held and I'm still running it now fine 🙂 Will replace soon though as the tread is shot though.
You can reliably do it with rubber inserts for small puntures - one brand are called anchovies. Wouldn't bother doing it on the trail myself, although you could - I'd just put a tube in (check for thorns sticking in your tyre) and fix it at home. If the puncture is more like a rip then it's progressively harder to fix, the bigger it is. Gashed sidewalls usually means the tyre is binned.
You could fix it trailside as the anchovies can go in from the outside, so the tyre can stay seated. If you've unseated the tyre somehow then you'd have a problem, as you're not likely to re-seat a tubeless tyre with a minipump, and even CO2 is hit and miss IME.
I'm new to tubeless. Currently running split tube ghetto tubeless on my bike and have so far repaired 2 holes with combinations of Park self adhesive patches and a bit of Duct tape and both are holding up well so far (I'm to tight to retire tyres that were perfectly fine with tubes just for a small cut/hole)
Tom Kp
Clean the inside of the tyre and use a normal patch with vulcanising solution, then put more vulcanising solution or flexible glue over the top of the patch just in case (something urethane-based, Evo Stik Serious Glue is good). Then superglue the hole on the outside of the tyre (again, flexible is good, like Gorilla Super Glue).
I repaired small holes like this 4 times last summer, never a problem with any of them.
I worked out the other day that I first started using tubeless 11 years ago!
Started DIY, moved to conversion kits with regular and then UST tyres and the market is now adequately developed that I'm running my own choice of tubeless ready components and tyres.
IME, most tyre spooge doesn't seal as large a hole as claimed. Tyre pressure is a factor here, since higher pressures tend to blow through sealed holes. I've personally turned a puncture to the bottom and lost all my spooge because tyre pressure forced it all out before it could seal.
These days, anything that won't immediately seal on the trail (which is most) gets reamed and stuffed with a plug - either an anchovie of whatever size, or a strip of rubber and rubber adhesive. I've learned its easy to keep riding and hoping it seal s, but they never do and the tyre gets soft, resulting in even more tyre damage or even rolling off the rim. Getting the plug the right size is the key. A large hole with lots of small plugs is usually not very reliable (my record was 15 anchovies in one repair, but it only just got me home).
I rarely bother with internal patches these days unless it's a big sidewall hole.
Clean the inside of the tyre and use a normal patch with vulcanising solution, then put more vulcanising solution or flexible glue over the top of the patch just in case (something urethane-based, Evo Stik Serious Glue is good). Then superglue the hole on the outside of the tyre (again, flexible is good, like Gorilla Super Glue).
This. I carry a co2 inflater with me just in case but the only time I've had to do this trail side I got the tyre reseated easily enough with a mini pump. If you got time it's much cleaner and cheaper than using a spare tube as you don't have to clean the tube or replace tyre jizz afterwards.