Technical The bead leaking with alloy wheels ?

I use rubber / brake assembly grease it won`t rot the tyre

 

There are many ways to solve this, alot of them outlined in the thread for sure. Personally, sand and paint the whole hoop of the wheel from bead to bead so the sealing side will seal up good, a good paint like POR 15 will seal any porosity problem you have. The adhesives suck when you have to remove, the paint will work better for flat repair, tire swaps etc.

 

yes I have had this Problem On aluminum wheels, light car , low air pressure , tire moving on Wheel, Street/Drag , Did Not want to add screws to Custom Made E/T wheels , Light cars Do not need hight air pressures. I used rubber cement.

On my O/T 32 ,I Avance to Bead Locks .

 

I had a similar problem with one of Eric Vaughn's Real Wheels when they first came out. Has nothing to do with hot rods but the aluminum alloy wheels on my wife's 2018 Cadillac have leaked air since the car was new same way with her 2014. We have to add air at least once a month. You put them in a dunk tank and you can't see bubbles but they still lose air.

 

Big thanks for the post. Now I know it wasn't something I missed when I had a very similar experience last fall when I went to use the studded snows mounted on Cad rims that came with my used OT truck. Prepping the bead surfaces, Slime, Fix- a- Flat, and NAPA bead sealer all helped to a degree but none stopped the slow leaks that always passed water tests. No leaks at all since swapping the tires onto some used steel rims. 'Nuff said before the Trad Police make their rounds.......

Ed

 

If you don't want to use grease, go to where they sell big truck tires and see if you can get some mounting compound. It's real thick like grease, but it's actually a soap. Not only does it lube the beads to let them slide over the rim edge, it's thick enough it helps seal the rubber bead to the rim . Then you wipe it all over your tires, brush real good and rinse and have the blackest sidewalls in town! I know it comes in 5 gallon buckets, but it might also come in gallon sizes. It's reusable, what squishes out the rim you can scoop up and put back in the bucket for next time.

 

bullshit. grease eats tires. whoever doesnt have luck with black bead sealer doesnt properly prep the wheel. I keep a wirebrush on a high cycle for this. when i mount a tire, even here in the rust belt, that tire doesnt leak until you can see the air coming through the cords.

 

"bullshit. grease eats tires."

I guess your first hand experience is different from my first hand experience.

 

one other thing to bear in mind the rims on most modern vehicles now are cast.not solid aluminum and as such the porosity is something you learn to live with.I have dealt with the air loss when temperature drops since the factory started installing them.it also does not help that the wheels come from a far away place where the ability to solve the problem does not exist.not that they can not it is not cost effective.also he tires are not immune to sidewall leakage put them in a tub and watch the bubbles.the only solution is to go real old school (solid tires) and wooden spoke wheels

 

Ya' know, I see that a lot around here.

 

I have some old tires I need to get rid of. Where can I get some of that bullshit grease?

 

Yeah, inner tubes knock the speed rating down a few dozen MPH.
They do because Tire speed ratings are pretty much directly related to heat generation, and subsequent weakening of the rubber.
I tried, and failed to get an answer for how much of a de-rate from Metzeler or maybe Bridgestone a decade or so back because I was using their modern tires with tubes on my old motorcycle with wire spoke wheels.

I worry when using a wire brush to clean aluminum wheel bead seats that I will make scratches that the tire's bead cannot conform to, which equals leaks. My 100k plus mile used alloy wheels often have islands of a layer of dirty, scabby, leaky rubber transferred from the previous tires. A quick swipe or even a scrub with a wire brush won't remove this. A very fine steel wire wheel, a brass wire wheel, or scrubbing with Scocthbrite run wet with 409 etc to form a circular pattern seems to work pretty good.

Soapy water left to sit 10 or minutes quietly on the inflated tire bead with the tie laid flat has been my go-to test for some time. Even very slow leakers will show a fizz of fine bubbles. I seem to recall I started doing that when known leakers submerged in water pleaded innocent.

For the last decade it seems like tire installations and changes by trusted tire shops and dealers have often come home with 1 slow leaker.
So far the soapy water fizz has consistently shown there is a problem and where the problem is located.

 

Found a leaky bead today. Broke the bead, slathered in my trusty bead sealer that has never failed me, put 15 lbs. in, bead popped, sprayed with soap, bubble city! Damn. Broke the bead again, slathered another coat on, same thing! What the hell, I'm getting tired of hefting this N50-15 around! So I aired it up to 40 lbs.. As the air went, the bubbles decreased, then stopped!

There are no directions on the can, pretty self explanatory, but I guess the extra air forced some sealer in where it needs to be. Something to keep in mind.

 

^^^^^ And push tire bead outward with more force or with less force from the outside. You decide.

 

I don't think that's the issue with modern wheels, but it certainly was 'back in the day'. There used to be a gray goop you could squirt into the tire/wheel that worked very well, can't remember the name of it now. Didn't make the mess that filling the tire with 'slime' does.

Paint can work if it's thick enough, but it will lift if any corrosion gets under it. Tubes reduce the speed rating of tubeless tires by at least one rating because of the heat retention, not a good idea. I've got a couple of leakers right now (both aftermarket, doesn't seem to be an issue with OEM wheels), I think I'll powdercoat those as that works very well if applied right.

 

"So I aired it up to 40 lbs.. As the air went, the bubbles decreased, then stopped!"

I had a similar experience a couple weeks ago. I had to take a tire off to replace a damaged valve stem. I got the tire back on a little bit off of the original location, and there was a little leakage where the tire weights had made sharp dents in the tire that no longer lined up, at low pressure just after the bead seated.
But when I go the tire up to 32 psi, the leaks stopped, and the tire's been good since.

 

OEM wheel / beads on aluminum rims leak like a sieve , ask any tire dealer . If the tires going to slip on the rim ,it will do it during braking before acceleration , you apply far more force under normal breaking than you do under normal acceleration. Vehicles that sit a great deal have more trouble with bead leaks than those that are used daily. Short of powder coating , I can't think of anything that would " stay" on an aluminum rim....

 

I had a set of old American Racing Aluminum Slots on my 1934 Sedan for about 10 years that never leaked. I also had a set of similar style/material aluminum wheels on my pickup through High School and College (about 10 years total time) (until the truck was wrecked by my sister) which never leaked. I don't remember really ever having to add air other than extreme cold spells throughout their lifetimes.

However, on my Daily Drivers over the years 2013 and a 2016 Ford Edge, every couple of months each winter, one of the 4 tires will lose air to about 20lbs and need refilled.

Never used any kind of product other than soapy water when having a tire mounted.

Guess Ive been lucky.

 

Almost all the OEM aluminum wheels I've owned were factory powdercoated, so that's probably why I never had any issues...

 

The " coated" factory wheels on my 2001 ram & my 2009 journey both have had to have the rims "wire brushed" and tires remounted .....twice , presently they hold air , but look like crap !! I guess I keep things too long ??

 

I'm just now taking a break during swapping out tires on some old 8-1/2 x 15 Torque Thrusts for my 56 Bird, removing a pair of Polyglas GTs that have been on there since 1975. Have a pretty nice modern Hunter rim-clamp machine with the overarm etc., and spent many hours as a kid doing truck split-rims and later heavy equipment, field repairs on many with a split rim with an o-ring etc. I have a big rat-tail file that is just the right radius to clean up the bead area on car/ pickup wheels, and will easily remove crusties and old rubber from aluminum rims without digging in to solid metal. For lube I use engineering pipe lube for plastic sewer/water lines, just commercial grade gel soap and slippery as the old snot- and cheap, pints, gallons, whatever. Keep an old tooth brush in it, after breaking the beads, run that brush fulla goop around the beads, tires come off easily. Same thing going on, lube 'em up, slide right on and seal up well. Also cleans up well, as of course it is soap. Make pretty good hand cleaner too

 

I remember seeing this issue In the 60’s when alloys were not painted on the area where the tire was mounted. The solution, at that time, was beeswax. It filled the voids and was easy to work with.

 

I like the beeswax idea.

 

I wonder how much heat a tube will take. Lippy

 

I had a garden tractor tire that kept leaking around the bead. Broke it down and applied some permatex non hardening gasket sealer to the bead. It’s held air for a year now. I Gould this be afraid to put it on a car tire. It can be cleaned off with lacquer thinner or carb cleaner.