Ok I seen a U tube video where a guy bought a vulcanizing machine and repaired the sidewall of a huge high dollar radial tractor tire. This is something I haven seen done and know hardly anything about. But im seriously thinking about buying a machine and attempting to fix some tires. Just reciently my son punctured the sidewall on a new tire on his car. We patched it and it held air but the sidewall had a bulge. Those machines cost in the $500 range so I want to find out as much as I can before buying one.
It is a ok patch on slow moving farm equipment. It is hard to balance a tire after Vulcanizing. In the 50s and earlier it was done. During rationing in world war 2 tires rationed so you could not to buy any so a lot of tire shops would do the service to get some one to get by. Also the cars driven before and during the war and right after were from the 20 to the early 50s were driven a lot slower that we do now and t and a fords did not weigh very much. I will tell you DO NOT do this operation break down and buy a tire. Its cheaper than a Funeral.
I have to agree with K9racer. This isn't something you do on street or road driven tires. This is usually on seriously expensive off road equipment tires . I had a buddy in Texas who had worked in the Goodyear tire shop in Dallas repairing earthmover tires and quite often it took him two or three days to do a repair on one As K9racer said back before and during and just after WWII this may have been done because of necessity tires were hard to get. During WWII you had to have a coupon to get new tires even if you could find them. The sidewalls were also 4 or more plies and you had something to work with. Back then it was called putting a "boot" in a tire which amounted to a big heavy duty patch that you cooked onto the inside of the tire with the vulcanizing machine. I dismounted tires in the early 70's that had those boots in them and we junked them at the tire store I worked at then. You would still get old timers who wanted you to fix them that way but the store I worked at didn't do that even on old truck tires for ag
I will agree there might be a balance problem. However I fail to see any increased danger. yes tires blew out back in the day. But they had innertubes. The danger of a repaired vulcanized tire failing isn't any greater than the belts failing on a radial. Ive had really good raidial tires that the belts slipped and blew out when just setting in the hot weather. Steel radial tires are a time bomb let them get a bit of age and they commonly come apart. Many times as you go through life you will find things that you knew to be a certain fact to not be that way at all. I was waiting for my turn at the DMV. This guy was telling about how Deer make terrible pets. Knew everything! finally I asked have you ever had pet deer? Of course his answer was no. We in fact have a pet deer. Our Doe is 12 years old and acts more like a goat. She loves to be petted. she likes to pester my wife when she hangs out the laundry. What Im wanting is advice from someone who actually owns and uses a vulcanizing machine. The number of tires We have to keep in service is more than most folks. We have got farm tractors and implements, trailers and several vehicles. We have some rear tractor tires that have the glued in boots and liners in them. Im not a fast driver. Even when the speed limit is more I still only drive 60 MPH.
"Many times as you go through life you will find things that you knew to be a certain fact to not be that way at all" ......Old wolf "Physician heal thyself". The above quote may apply to you as well. Ray
Vulcanizing only repairs rubber damage not cord damage. Even on tractor tires it is usally a short term fix.
I have had radial semi tires repaired with what is called a section repair, is this the same thing as you are talking about? They "cook" in a section in sidewalls. I've ran them many miles without problems, then again, I've had them blow out in a short time. Lots of recapped truck tires have section repairs done on them, but there are limits on the size and placement of the repairs. Now as to running them on a passenger tire, I have no idea if it can be done, and how it would hold up. I would talk to a place that does truck tires and see what they say.
When a teenager in the late 50s, dad bought new back tires for the Farmall M tractor. Took it home to plow the wheat field. First round up against the fence, outside tire rolled around with a lost cultivator sweep stuck in it. Left a slit about 3" long. Tire shop vulcanized it and we were good to go. Not sure about it being a short term repair. Tire lasted about 30 years. That said, I would carefully consider vulcanized repaired on highway tires. I would certainly reject tires with cord damage.
I remember working for Jack Molitor in his Vickers station in about 1969-70. He still had the small little station with two pumps, a pit outside for changing oil and lubing, a separate shed where he did tire vulcanizing. I believe the only tires he did this way were bias tires. Wish I had the old dime a bag popcorn machine out of there. Those were the days, $1.50 an hour and I had a 59 vette.
There are a few things to be concerned with when repairing sidewalls, and proper term is section repair. First advise would be to go to your local bandag tire retreader. You can get proper section repairs done, and a lot of them for $500, then you add the air tools and materials needed to do the repairs. It adds up. The main thing you need to vulcanize rubber is heat and pressure. The patch or boot installed in the tire can be chemically cured without heat. They do sell spotters, a mechanical device that you clamp on the sidewall and tighten by hand for pressure and they have irons you plug in that heat to desired temp. A quick search shows they are now called vulcanizers. Like any job, the prep work is the key to a good outcome. You need to remove all of the damaged rubber from the injury, remove any loose steel cords, keep the repair as small as possible, and of course clean and uncontaminated. This is where tire specific air tools come into play. The new raw rubber you vulcanize, simply is a space filler for the material you removed, it also provides protection from moisture to the steel belts you exposed. The boot you install, has the strength built into it to replace the strength the tire lost. A good example taught to me, explaining the characteristics of rubber. Take a old innertube and cut a patch out in a circle shape. Now you and your buddy can have a tug of war and pull and stretch the rubber all day and not hurt it. Now put one little nick or split in the edge of the rubber, it will easily rip in half as soon as you pull on it. This is the critical job the repairman must do to be successful. If you leave any part of the injury or split in the tire, it will just continue to grow and soon fail. Also size limitations and injury location. If the injury is to close to the bead, you can only get a patch for strength on one side of the injury. Size limitations is self explanatory. And your retread shop repairman will have charts with acceptable sizes for different tires, 4ply, 6 ply 10 ply etc... All that being said, you may not find anyone willing to take the responsibility of section repair on a passenger tire.
That is ironic...on my home world it is referred to as "Earthanizing" and we still don't recommend it, it is not logical. Buy new tires, live longer and prosper as a result.
If you do this, you will look back and think" what the hell was i thinking" unless your going into bizz doing tractor tires?
Tell your son, whom you love, to buy a new tire and move on, and buy the road hazard warranty on the replacement tire this time. After 35 years in the tire business, with a retread plant, we did section repairs in everything: truck, industrial, earthmover, but NEVER in a passenger tire, especially a radial sidewall. A tread or shoulder injury MIGHT be repairable, but not the light radial ply body cord. The sidewall flex will eventually either loosen the repair or cause a body ply separation and failure. The bulge at the repair point sounds like the start of a failure. As far as your aspiration to get in the tire repair business, don't. The liability exposure in today's world is not worth it.
I think I own 14 tractors at this moment. Most of them use a variant of the 38 size rear tire. Have you priced a new 15.5 38 tractor tire? and the tubes are pricey also. Tubes can be vulcanized also. According to the videos ive watched the inner patch boot is several more plys thick and several times the size of the original damage. Unless it comes loose the repaired section could actually be stronger than the original tire. Now adding all the extra rubber likely will cause a balance problem. Back in the 70,s I ran a 621 caterpillar earth mover. I got hired because the guy before me got too close to the push cat blade and busted a huge gnash in a front tire. They sent that tire away to be vulcanized. And It held up. And We ran hard over a primitive haul road. Struck level the payload was 21 yards. And we ran them heaped up and falling off the sides. And we went full speed for 10 to 12 hours a day. So I have decided im gonna buy one. Even if I spend $1ooo.00. Just two rear tractor tires will pay for it. You ought to see the price used rear tractor tires bring at auction. I can get stobbed and damaged rear tractor tires for free. And vulcanize a few mount on rims and resell them at auction. And I agree its all in the prepwork and know how that determine the success or failure. Thanks for the inpuit. I just gotta decide which outfit to buy?
Thanks good advise. No im not going into the tire repair vulcanizing business. I have no desire to deal with the general public. Mainly my own tires. Maybe repair some rear tractor tires and resell them.
At this moment I own 5 of the M Farmalls. Mine all have the M&W increased bore super kits with the high compression pistons. Two are LP and three are gasoline. I have built 3 point hitches for two of them. The original rear tires on a M are 12.6-38. most of mine have larger 15.5-38 tires and can easily spin them in 4 th gear.
Been several years since I have been around it. When I was around it, we used large pressure chambers that would hold 22 semi truck tires per load. Something you would look for is the reach of the tool. You want to be able for that tool to reach the center of the tread on your tractor tires. Otherwise you will be limited to fixing only sidewalls. My advise here is to talk with Meyers tire supply. I dealt with them for years while working in different shops, myers was basically the go to guy for supplies. Just like snapon tools, we had a myers salesman stop by the shop once a week and we would give him a list of what we needed and he would deliver the following week. So talking on the phone with a myers salesman, tell him what size tires you want to be able to repair, he can tell you what options you have.
It is funny how subjects come around. Today a friend who does demo derbys came by my shop to pick up some parts.. I asked about tires. He said he cuts the rings off a smaller tire and mounts it inside a larger tire so he gets 10 plys. He then said he uses a truck tube with the long valve stem replaced with a short unit. All this is done by a truck shop with a vulcanizing system.
You can make the bitchenest white letter tires or whitewalls with a vulcanizing doohickey i think Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Ok I have been researching the subject a bit. Ive watched several U tube videos. A lot of them where places like Mexico Portigual ,Phillipines & india. And they where repairing holes in the sidewalls of radial passenger tires that you could stick your thumb through. Those folks over in those countries sometimes have some primitive equiptment. one guy had a home brew vulcanizer that used gasoline to heat the rubber. Many have repair places right beside the roads. and make a living out of almost nothing. Ive decided that Vulcanizing repairs to sidewalls isn't done here not because it doesn't work but because of the libality issues. and we are not impoverished like those places. We are a throw away society.
As far as I know the laws have not changed. On Truck tires, you were allowed to install a nail hole repair in the steer tires. If that tire requires something larger then the nail hole patch, it gets moved back to a drive or trailer tire. Very clear laws on truck tires. On a passenger/light truck tire, is very gray and shady. You can fix a tire and the owner swears he will not put it on the front, then sells the car and new owner rotates the tires ... It is all liability. In a earlier life I did retread truck tires for about 14 years. I was a certified master craftsman for 10 years, I attended several work shops on tire repair. As a team we retreaded thousands of tires every year, the repair corner was mine. I am a very firm believer in section repairs, but doing them for others and liability it is not worth the chance. Now as a remodel carpenter, I inhale sawdust instead of rubber dust.
Yes indeed third world places. Those places are not full of lawyers and sue happy folks. So you will be limited to your own personal use here.
Well you all are gonna get a laugh at this. I ran across a old Iron in the trunk of a car. got to thinking yep that would make a great Vulcanizer! So I found a good tread radial that had a thumb size puncture. cut up a new tractor tire boot to get live rubber. and ground and prepped that hole. Rigged my valve spring compressor to clamp the iron on it. and let It cook all nite. Musta had the iron too hot or left it too long. It vulcanized that tire but its a big flat spot. maybe I need a concave plate below the heat source. Im going to mount it on a implement wheel and put it on my hay rake. I really enjoy this experimenting stuff makes me feel like a little kid again.
I had intended to mount the (repaired?) tire on a implement wheel. Couldn't find a wheel that would mount tubeless and don't have a proper size 16 inch radial tube. So just to find out I mounted it up on a 16 inch alumimun rim from a jeep cheorkee. And amazingly its not sunken in after inflating it to 35 PSI. in fact it has a slight bulge. I could use my tire regroover and dress it up a bit. however for a implement tire its fine as it is. Been about a hour and it hasn't lost any air pressure. When I was young there was this older guy named Sammy. Drove a 54 ford Y block with loud exhaust. He had a boot in the sidewall of a rear tire. It had came loose and slipped and the inner tube was bulging out. and there was a pinhole in the tube. He spit on it and rubbed it clean and stuck black tape on the leak. He returned to the swimming hole the next day and that tape was still holding. He stated as long it is round and black and holding air I aint changing it
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