New tyres, old wheels.

[CAR]

I had a concerned phonecall from Dad this morning telling me what happened at a local STS tyre bay yesterday.

When Dad bought the mk1 although it came shod with 4 almost new Uniroyals of 175x13 size the spare was ancient.
After much hunting around he found some Toyo 175x13 car tyres on the internet and decided to buy a pair, one for the spare and another for a second spare wheel and eventually to replace which ever pair wears first on the car.

So yesterday he took the spare wheel down to his local STS and a discussion started about fitting new tyres to old rims.
The tyre on the rim already was approx. 1981 (verification expected from Tony Robinson of 'Time team' in the near future) very shiny and extremely hard. It had a tube in it.
Dad then asked about whether he should have a tube in the new tyre. Al the Uniroyals on the car have tubes in them.
The manager came to join the conversation and said that for them to put a tube in a tyre it needed to be a tyre designed for a tube (tubeless tyres are not smooth enough inside and will wear holes in a tube!) and furthermore he said that it was company policy they would not fit a tubeless tyre to a rim of that design. Dad's rims are the original mk1 rims which only have the safety bead on one side I believe, much the same as our MOMO alloys and the stag steels I will be putting on the pi.

So my (and Dad's) question would be, what does everyone else running on standard or older rims with only the one safety bead use? Do you have tubes, or do you run without and have you ever been refused tyre fitting on this basis?

Colin

[kevinw]

Slightly tangential (just for once ) - I had traditionally made wire wheels on the TR for a long while, which obviously need tubes as the spoke holes leak. The tyres were tubeless Pirelli P6000. TO make matters worse, the tyres are 65 or 70 profile (I can't exactly remember) and the only tubes available were 80 profile.

I never had a problem with the tubes puncturing due to abrasion either with the tyre carcass or the fabric band on the wheel covering the spokes. I did mention to the tyre fitter at the time that I'd heard about problems with fitting tubes into tubeless tyres and his response was something like "some people think that". Can't help with the bead, though.

The mention of "traditionally made wire wheels" is because I know you can now get wires that can be fitted with tubeless tyres and no tubes.

Kevin

[CAR]

What about the wheels on OPaL though Kevin, do you have those tubed or not, because although the wheels are half an inch wider on mk2s I would imagine they are still the same construction.

Colin.

[Jonathan Lewis]

Hello Colin,

For what its worth, I've never encountered any problem/warning in having tubeless tyres fitted to various Triumph rims (Mk2 steel, 2500S/Stag alloy and Dolomite steel).

That said, many moons ago, there was an issue on a newly-fitted tyre with leakage between tyre and rim, which was initially blamed on slight corrosion to the rim edge. Whilst eventually cured by removing and refitting the tyre with the use of some type of sealant, I do remember a caution from the tyre fitter that, if the resealing didn't work, a new rim would be required as he would not be prepared to use a tube in conjunction with a tubeless tyre.

Regards,

[CAR]

I have the same sealant use on the MOMOs currently on the estate Johnathan, if the tyre loses pressure over a period of time the tyre has a tendancy to come off the single bead and reinflation involves my local tyre fitters. So I just keep a close eye on the pressures to avoid this, which is never a bad practice to get into anyway.

Colin

[kevinw]

What about the wheels on OPaL though Kevin, do you have those tubed or not, because although the wheels are half an inch wider on mk2s I would imagine they are still the same construction.

Colin.

OPaL's tyres are without tubes, as were the rather ancient ones that came off a couple of years ago. I would perhaps add that the chap who does my tyres has done it all his working life and has done all sorts of vehicles - cars, plant machinery and HGV's. He won't do the split rims on the buses for us though...

Kevin

[Alan Chatterton]

you Dad's are steel wheels, should be tubeless. Only use tube due to dodgy seal on horrible old alloys!

[Steve Knight]

Never heard of that issue. Tubeless tyres fit all my cars / steel or alloy. Generally tubes are no longer available / especially for low profile tyres, so cannot be used. Alloys may need sanding on the sealing rim every 10 years or so. So why not steels. But special aluminum primer will sort that. Interesting Kevin - tell me more about sealed wire wheel rims. How do they work ?

[kevinw]

Interesting Kevin - tell me more about sealed wire wheel rims. How do they work ?

I've never seen them in the metal, so to speak, just seen adverts for them. I would guess that the inside of the rim is sealed with some sort of epoxy or something to keep them air tight

Kevin

[Alec]

Hello Steve\Kevin,

I bought a set of MWs wire wheels and they had what appeared to be silicon sealant around the head of each nipple. Certainly worked fine with tubeless tyres.

Alec