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hi sages- have repaired at least 50 flat tires since 69 when I started using radial tires(used bias ply tires 65-69). always have done it the same way and never had a problem: take wheel off car, inflate tire , locate puncture by hearing the hissing or use soapy water on suspected spot. remove cause(nail, spike, bullet, screw, shrapnel, etc. deflate tire, clean hole with tire reamer, put rubber cement on reamer and run through hole, put plug and cement on slotted end of insertion tool , push into and twist plug into hole and once through pull back out so part is outside tire and other part is inside tire. by plug I mean these black sticky strings that look like pipe cleaners from the parts stores. then let the tire sit for a few minutes and inflate. can even check repair with soapy water for leak bubbles. have never had a problem with these plugs leaking, failing or coming out. tire stores tell me what I do is no good and I should bring the tire into them, pay them $25-35 to dismount the tire,put in a plug, trim it and glue a round patch to the inside of the tire, of course rebalance and restem the remounted tire and road test the car(where they will surely discover the need for new ball joints,pistons and muffler bearings). don't think this is necessary and is just another ripoff for those clip joints who need to make a home run. don't mind a single or even a double but still hate home runs. what think you(maybe I have a bad attitude). btw I do this for tread punctures. if the puncture is on the edge of the tire or the sidewall, its usually curtains for the tire. btw #2 have heard that it is not legal to repair tires this way. think that is a canard. thanks tons oldduke
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Im 63,& as far as I can remember I think I have only had about 7 blowouts or flat tires,I put about 75,000 on a 72 Nova w 2 blowouts,,650,000 miles on my E-150 Van in 14 yrs ,,3 flats,,,& lastly on my Volvos in 275,000 miles 1 flats,,,50 sounds pretty far up there..
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hi blindboy- 50 is about right give or take a few. have had about 20 cars since 65. have also repaired many tire punctures for friends. never had a problem. always used the method described with the string plugs. regards oldduke
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Hi Oldduke,
Mostly tires with special rubber compound (read: low rolling resistance) need to be patched from inside. I've done that when I used Yokohama tires before. The rubber material was incompatible with sticky thread repair. But now I'm using Michelin which luckily accepts the sticky repair.
Tire shops here also recommend using internal patch to any gullible customers. Ways to make more money I guess. I declined. I asked them to try sticky repair first.
Regards,
Amarin.
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hi amarin- never heard of that kind of tire. sounds like you've been to the cleaners in clip city already. that fast one you describe on gullible customers bears out my experience. remember the dollar will never drop in value as low as some people will stoop for it. regards oldduke
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"remember the dollar will never drop in value as low as some people will stoop for it."
:)
Best,
J
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hi jw- good quote. have offered it many times to my friends and enemies. would never stoop. too much of a cheap bastid. regards oldduke
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I like you, you old cheap bastid!! Like Tom on "Waiting For God" said, "I always wanted to be a bastard!" When you're living on fixed income, it is almost impossible to make it from one month to the next. Screw what other people say or call you. Their opinions don't mean doodley anyway. I think your tire repair method is excellent. There are many shysters in the auto repair business, but there also are some real gems.
Hang in there, old duke!
Andrew
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hi peppa- thanks for the compliment. even aunt flossie told me to use the term frugal or impecunious instead since it is more politically correct and nancy would approve. agree with you pep, there are a few gems but they are as rare as ways to beat the draft were back in 68. better to develop strategies and alternative routes to repair automobiles, appliances, etc your self or else go to the cleaners and get clipped. shysters never sleep. just yesterday had to replace a front directional signal bulb. asked a crumb at my gas station and he said he would only charge me $35 to do it. bought 2 3457 bulbs at auto z for 7.49 and did it myself in 5 minutes . only down side was had to be careful not to shred my hands getting in there behind the headlights. is that being a cheap bastid or not? thanks tons oldduke
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posted by
someone claiming to be CB
on
Tue May 8 16:02 CST 2018 [ RELATED]
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It's known as Plug n Patch. A plug in the hole and a patch on the inside.
I had a nail puncture, that a tire service failed to successfully patch with the Internal Patch. They tried another inside patch which also leaked. They told me I needed to buy a new tire. Fortunately they gave me back my money....So Dukerster all are not sheisters. lol
When I got back home, I went to the family owned tire dealer that originally sold me the tire. I asked them if they used Plug n Patch, they looked at me and said "who dosen't"?
I told them about the failed patch and they said IF They other shop didn't grind down the inside too much putting on the patch. They fixed it with a Plug n Patch
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hi and thanks to you sages of ancient Volvos. - I remember those hot fire patches on the inside of the puncture . used them a few times without failure then all of a sudden they disappeared . told this happened b/c they weren't any better than the much easier and cheaper to use sticky string plugs. the fire patch required removal of the tire from the rim, rebalance and often the frequent alleged need for ball joints and muffler bearings from shysters. shop usually charged $20 for the fire patch job. the few fire patches I had done never failed,but neither did the string plugs I did. risky to do a string plug on the edge of the tread. never saw a successful sidewall puncture repair...if you bad boys know of one do tell.those parts of the tire seem to have too much rolling stress and flexing.btw fredneck drove a 36 ford business coupe once and the mechanical brakes scared the hell out of me. as bad as trying to fight your way out of khe sanh with only a flintlock musket. thanks tons sages and thanks for not calling me a cheap bastid. oldduke
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Would it be spitting in the face of superstition to note I haven't had a flat in a dozen years at least, just before setting out on a long drive with a 40-yo donut spare in the trunk?
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore
Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
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Art, It would be more than spitting--more like inviting. Please reconsider using a 40 year old donut -- the rubber is likely to have broken down significantly. - Dave
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hi arty b- wow don't think its pure luck . think its payback not only for being a sage of Volvos but also because you give so generously of your advice to help the Volvo folks on this forum . sure I am only one of many here who appreciate your help. your sharp sense of humor is an extra added attraction . thanks tons oldduke btw have those donut tires been around that long? my 92 240 had one in the fender well which was shredded like it had been blown to hell by an rpg. couldn't even read the year of manufacture. sticky string plug wouldn't have done any good on that bad boy.
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oldduke, I'm back from pushing my luck for another 2K miles without tire trouble but I was thinking about it the whole time instead of being comfortably, blissfully ignorant. There was a time back a few years when I had this great idea to ditch the donuts and put full sized spares in the cars, which I did, and then for whatever change of mind put the donuts back again, so I was wondering about your question of whether donuts had existed back when this car was made. Now that I'm home again, I looked in the owner's manual to find the reference to the "compact spare" and read the date code, which is decade ambiguous, but compatible with the build date of the car. So I think the original donut found its way back into the trunk.
As in the manual, the use is specified to allow the car to limp to a tire shop, not to finish a cross-country itinerary, and that is all I expect of it, if it at least gets me off of the Interstate. I've read several accounts of owners finding these long-expired tires in shreds, unused in their wheel wells, so I think I will plan ahead to get this one out of the car before the next fate-tempting travel begins.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.
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hi arty b- good point well taken. back in 11 took a shredded donut out of the 92 245 and put a used regular tire in the cubby hole. donuts I think are more prone to shredding or bursting since they are inflated to 60psi instead of the 33 psi in the regular tires. thanks tons oldduke
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posted by
someone claiming to be CB
on
Wed May 9 15:15 CST 2018 [ RELATED]
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all my flats were from nails. roofing nails. after I had a new roof put on and with a gravel driveway apparently the roofers did a poor job of "policing their brass". LOL
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hi cb- youre not kidding. roads in fla are notorious for all kinds of dropped jagged road hazards especially the infamous us route 1 which waste tires. nails of all types , glass, screws, pieces of bones, staples, pieces of knives, spikes, even broken razors. regards oldduke
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Have had multiple tires plugged the way you describe.
Never had them patched on the inside or balanced afterwards.
The weight of the plug cord is seemingly as much a piece of gravel caught in the tread so I am dubious it is enough to warrant balancing.
Virginia allows plugs in tread only.
If you are doing a regular tire rotation and inspection, odd wear due to an imbalance should be apparent ... if you do not feel it driving first.
After 60+ years my skepticism has only increased.
Of course the surgeon wants to do surgery.
So take an aspirin before having the brain removed for a headache.
Cost of tire ... miles left on tire ... cost of patch ... cost of tire store exercise ... the numbers do not lie.
--
1988 244 DL; B230F; LH-2.2; Manual 5-speed (M47)
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I've also plugged many tires in the tread area with the brown or black "sticky string" and never had a problem. I worked at a Renault-Peugeot dealership '73-'76 and of course those cars came with Michelin X tires. We patched those from the inside with a tool that held a "patch assembly" tight to the inside. The patch assembly consisted of a metal cup with the patch part on the bottom and the inside of the "cup" filled with a flammable powder. You light up the powder which would burn for about a half minute and the patch would be permanently bonded to the tire. Then remove the tool and "cup" when it's cooled down. If you marked the tire/rim orientation there was no need to re-balance. -- Dave
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I forgot about those things. We used to simply call them "hot patches", probably because we didn't know what the word vulcanizing meant.
--
Current rides: 2005 Volvo S80 2.5T, 2003 Volvo V70 2.4NA, 1973 Volvo 1800ES (getting ever closer to road worthiness)
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Hi Oldduke,
I think I have been playing with cars longer than you have and agree that is a good way to repair a flat tubeless tire.
My first car back in '53 or '54 was a '36 Ford rag top and I mean that literally. With almost no money, anything that needed to be fixed or flats repaired was done by me. Tires all had tubes in them and had to be partially removed from the rim to be repaired. Then along came tubeless tires which we all thought would come off the rim in a hard turn. The first ones were bias ply but I think we repaired them the same way as radials with the sticky string plugs.
Don't think I can match your count, but I bet I have repaired at least 40 tires and still at it if the need arises.
Old guys rule! Tom
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I'm a believer that the better repair is to break the tire down and install a patch on the inside surface. However, that being said, I've used the black (sometimes brown) sticky plugs MANY times without an issue and I'm not afraid to continue that practice.
As for legality, I wouldn't think they would be so readily available in the stores if they were illegal.
--
Current rides: 2005 Volvo S80 2.5T, 2003 Volvo V70 2.4NA, 1973 Volvo 1800ES (getting ever closer to road worthiness)
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+1 on Chris Mullet's comments.
I've probably plugged 10-20 of my family's tires over the years without issue.
I'd never attempt one in a sidewall as I think that'd be dangerous.
But for the tread area? Sure.
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