just wanted to know how you seal the rivets in the rim for no air leaks. are there better valve stems to use such as the threaded kind? do you set the air pressure any different?
If your wheels (rims) don't have safety beads then running tubeless tires is a bad idea. If you want, you can run tubes in the tubeless tires, on your "designed for tubes" wheels.
I made some reversed wheels for my 33 ford and I got some porosity in my welds from welding over some rust tires went flat in two or three days, Took the tire back off and put some Flex SEAL like you see on TV on them and after a couple hours I mounted the tires and put 30 lb in both tires, that was a few months ago and they still have 30 lbs in them
riveted rims are so old that the rust has completely sealed any possible leaks. if you are really worried, paint around the rivets with POR15. I've never heard anyone else say tubeless tires are a bad idea on rims made before 'safety beads'. Those beads were designed for women who never check the tire pressure
Also, make sure there's no corrosion in the bead area. Sand and repaint the inside beads if you have to.
Detroit sold literally millions of cars with tubeless tires on the pre-safety-bead wheels with no issues...
I've done it, but sealed all the seams with Sikaflex 291 marine grade sealant first. Never had any leaks and the tires didn't fly off the rims either. I still have two of the rims I did about ten years ago and the tires still have air.
I must be lucky because I sandblast all rims completely and paint before I use them and have never used tubes with the exception of tractor wheels. I guess if they were that rusty I wouldn't have used them in the first place. Just never had a problem with riveted wheels.
I have tubeless "Coker Classics" on the stock Ford wheels on my '51 Club Coupe. It is the only car I have that doesn't have at least one slow leak. I also agree that the "saftey rims" aren't really necessary.
I have only mounted a few sets of tubeless tires on riveted wheels (as old as 1940), but never had any leak issues with them. I suggest you see if you have a problem, before you try to fix it.
Yup, I've run tubeless many many times on older rims with no issues (including leak downs) before I learned there was a difference in the rim bead design. A buddy had to watch the pressures real close when tubeless first became readily available and he put 'em on his '55 Ford convertible, popped the beads real easy under hard cornering regularly when he didn't. Like mileage, everybody's experiences may be different due to different side circumstances that might come with any changes. Just remain aware of the possibilities. Ed
What RidgeRunner said. The newer "tubeless" wheels have a tapered bead seat that corresponds to the same angle on the tire's bead. This helps lock the tire bead on the wheel. The raised safety bead on the wheel helps keep the tire's bead from running in to the drop center of the wheel in case of low inflation and high side loads. The modern tire will seal ok on the older style wheel, just not as effectively. Sorry for the rabbit chase, just put some silicon on the rivet heads. Snap in rubber stems are sufficient for the inflation you're going to run.
Because it’s better and safer. But there where tubeless tires in use long before safety beads became standard. I want to say early 60’s is when we started to see more safety bead type rims And they became common place by the tail end of the decade. Is it safer? Yes Is it better? Ok sure Is it out right required ? No just common sense , keep your pressures up and tires in good shape and it should not pose an issue.
There isn't much about old cars that is safe. The added risk is the price we pay for our little bit of fun.
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