homemade tubeless tires

[pedro]

I tried the instructions given by someone here on the board a couple of months ago, and must share that for two weeks I have been riding my homemade tubeless tires without loosing any air. I got two of my ridding friends to try it and they are also very happy.
tubeless advantages (which everyone has prob heard of)
         1.resistant to thorn punctures, (if the slime is added, they wont puncture at all!)
         2. tire may be ridden with much less air and thus contribute to a softer ride (add up to 1" of suspension)
         3. basically no "snake bite" type of punctures

I beleive any tire/rim can be converted, and the advantages are worth the trouble.
My bike rides much better, Traction on the climbs is.............incredible.  The lower air pressure allows the tires to absorb hits and makes the supension and bike feel very smooth, allowing me to maintain cadence through rocky sections.

Did anybody else try this project?

pedro

[jimbo]

Yep, my first attempt at tubeless was the ghetto bmx method.  Does every thing as you described.  Thorn resistance is great as we like to ride one trail that's full of them.

My next tubeless project will be a rim conversion similar to buying a tubeless rim nowadays except lighter.  I found some DH schrader valves with rim lock so that will be the basis of the conversion.  I waiting for my current tires to wear down before I try this new method.  

The only disadvantage that I found with using homemade tubeless is not being able to switch tires like you can with tubes.  You pretty much need to stick with a set till you wear them down.  

[Scott]

I will be trying the suggested setup-BMX or 24" tubes and my standard tires along with Slime.  Jimbo, why is there a problem swapping into another set of tires, say for muddy conditions?  I must be missing the rest of the installlation idea behind using the BMX tubes.

[Matno]

I will be trying the suggested setup-BMX or 24" tubes and my standard tires along with Slime.  Jimbo, why is there a problem swapping into another set of tires, say for muddy conditions?  I must be missing the rest of the installlation idea behind using the BMX tubes.

BMX tubes? I thought we were talking about homemade tubeless setups here... Homemade tubeless, similar to Stan's Notubes (but a lot cheaper), just use a regular tire with some form of rim seal and a liquid sealant inside the tire. There is no tube. Thus, when you want to swap tires, you have to clean up a very sticky mess (unless you're really careful) and refill the new tire with said liquid (which I don't believe is reusable).

Am I reading this wrong?

[Jimbo]

BMX tubes? I thought we were talking about homemade tubeless setups here... Homemade tubeless, similar to Stan's Notubes (but a lot cheaper), just use a regular tire with some form of rim seal and a liquid sealant inside the tire. There is no tube. Thus, when you want to swap tires, you have to clean up a very sticky mess (unless you're really careful) and refill the new tire with said liquid (which I don't believe is reusable).



Am I reading this wrong?

Use the bmx tube as your rim seal by cutting the tube length wise.  



I use latex as the sealant.  It can be messy if you're not careful.  An easy way to clean up the latex is to let it dry and peel the latex off.  If you got kids, they'll have a blast peeling the stuff off.



It's the extra work involved which makes me reluctant to change tires.  It is worth it though if you don't change tires to often.  I've gotten lazy where I don't add sealant to the tires any more.  It's a lot easier to add sealant after you get a leak.  Just pull out the schrader valve and add the sealant through the valve.  I carry a small 2oz bottle of premix sealant.

[5500C]

anyone have the link to make the tires?

[pedro]

To find the "tubeless tires" recipe just do a search with tubeless as keywords, and the thread should come up.

Instead of latex, I used the liquid that comes in automovile fix a flat aereosol cans. Is latex the white paper glue as in "elmer's glue".  If so, it is heavy, does it have to be thinned with.......what....water?

[jimbo]

anyone have the link to make the tires?

This is link.  The only different is I buy the latex mold builder from the craft store.  $15 for 8 or 16 ozs I think.  Enough for 30 plus tires.  I modified my formula to 1 part latex, 3 parts water for a total of 2-3 oz per tire.  One part tubeless slime is optional.  The tubeless slime has bits of rubber to plug bigger holes.  I also prefer Schrader valves because I add the sealant through the value.  Less messy that way.  Using latex will bring the cost of the sealant per tire to 50 cents.

It's not white glue.  It's the stuff you see on Mission Impossible when they peel off the mask.  

http://www.steedcycles.com/newsletter/tubeless.htm

http://www.eti-usa.com/indust/moldbind.htm