Air compressor for tubeless

Anonymous

So with a track pump and the cheap compressor in the car, these tyres aren't going up. That despite all the tricks in the book / youtube I can find.

Advice is to use a decent compressor, and likely even the garage ones wont cut it as apparently they're often safety limited or something like that. Anyway I don't want to rely on garages to seat the tyres.

So what compressor should I be looking at? There are hundreds of them and no idea what's good or bad but obviously I can spend £100s on one, or £20 (my cheapo car one was £10 ).

p.s. this is for tubeless ready rims to seat Maxxis High Roller / Minion tyres, non tubeless single ply.

Short term I'll see if I can get someone to pop them on for me, but next time I need to do them I need a compressor. If I haven't given up and gone back to tubes, but I've got the rims and I'm determined to try it out.

cooldad

I always thought it was a dumb idea, now I know.

estampida

if the receiver has a large enough pipe thread, just up grade the pipe and valve can let more air out of the receiver

or a screw compressor (used for high flow rates)

but the hoses have a rating of 10 bar or so (lots of pressure) but you wont get any greater flow due to the restriction of the valve on the rim

if your tyres keep going flat

bad tyres
bad seal
bad valve
not enough sealant

but I use tubes cos they work all the time and I can change a tyre without needing lots of sticky stuff and a compressor.....

stevieboy308

anything with a tank should do the job, most car 12 volts ones don't have a tank so although they can pump upto a high pressure they can't give the surge you get from a pressurised tank.

but what are you going to do in the woods? my mate tried it, had nothing but trouble

cooldad

IMHO if you can't get it right with at most a track pump, it's not practical.

Proutster

Excuse me if you've already tried these things but, the 3 things that - combined - now mean that I can pop tyres on and up first time every time are:

1. Coke bottle air reservoir clicky.
2. Loads of soapy water bubbles wiped around the tyre bead (it's the bubbles that do the trick, the smaller the bubbles the better). I use a small paint bucket, loads of washing-up liquid, a little bit of water and a balloon whisk to get the bubbles.
3. Removable valve cores - I take the core out and connect the air reservoir to the valve to inflate, then with a bit of quick-handiwork you can take the pipe off and stuff the valve core back in and the tyre's still up.

I'm using Superstar AM-490 rims, ghetto tubeless using cut 20" tubes and Stans Sealant (2 cups with my 2.35" tyres).

Good luck, IMHO the slight hassle until you get the knack is dramatically outweighed by the complete lack of snakebites and resistance to thorns etc.

camerauk

Also have you tried the CO2 Pumps you can get that is meant to work although not tried it yet
I have managed mine with a track pump seem to work easily with my Ground control tyres and DT swiss rims

70\ʹspenguin

Buy a schrader adaptor for a pound, take wheel to nearest garage forecourt, insert 20p....

YeehaaMcgee

Tubes.

Anonymous

Actually I was reading about the coke bottle ghetto compressor yesterday. Interesting but maybe hassle.

Removable cores I don't think I've got though not sure. Some tell me it's not essential other than if you want to stick the sealant in without popping a bit of the tyre off.

Soapy water I've tried, as have done both seating the bead in the dip and going round seating the bead carefully with tyre levers on the sides as best as possible (different videos from different sites, inc Stans, telling me very different things).

CO2 - I don't want to waste one to find it doesn't work. Track pump does nothing, nor does the 12V car pump.

As for the nearest garage and 20p, as others have said they may not work as they have some safety thingy now which reduces the flow. Worth a try and do have an adapter anyway so 20p instead of £1.20 to find out. I just don't want to be relying on a garage, especially if I have to replace a tyre and I'm stuck somewhere remote.

And yeah, tubes may be the answer, but I want to try. Having given tubeless a few rides and from opinions of those who actually do run tubeless rather than from people like myself who scoffed at the idea, I'm interested to see how it runs as I did like the feel of it over rough stuff and cornering.

Proutster

deadkenny wrote:

Actually I was reading about the coke bottle ghetto compressor yesterday. Interesting but maybe hassle.

It works - 3 litres of air at 80psi is more than the tyre can hold so it fills it straight way.

Removable cores I don't think I've got though not sure. Some tell me it's not essential other than if you want to stick the sealant in without popping a bit of the tyre off.

It works - without the restriction to airflow of the core, the above 3 litres of air just pops the tyre up.

Soapy water I've tried, as have done both seating the bead in the dip and going round seating the bead carefully with tyre levers on the sides as best as possible (different videos from different sites, inc Stans, telling me very different things).

As above it needs to be bubbles not soapy water, they kind of seal and restrict the airflow out past the bead.

With these 3 things I now know that the tyre'll go up straight away, so I add the sealant before I've even pumped the tyre up.

OK, I've only done this on Kenda Nevegals (both wire bead & Kevlar, both 2.1" & 2.35"), Bontrager Mud X (2.0" Kevlar), Kenda Slant Six (2.35" Kevlar) & Maxxis Crossmark (2.1" Kevlar with Exo protection) - but I think that's a fair enough cross-section of makes, sizes and types to be confident that it works.

The above may be hassle but IMO they work.

jairaj

Removing valve cores helps loads you get a much better air flow and so seats the tyres easier. try it if your valve cores can be removed.

I user a maxiss tyres and stans rims. I find a cheapy track pump from tesco does the job fine. You want something that is high volume and low pressure. Look for a pump with a large diameter.

milko9000

the garage 20p ones definitely won't work, they do the same pitiful thing as your car compressor one.

Having seen the hassle Dan went through (I think CO2 was the only way he managed it in the end) I can't be arsed. No punctures in over six months, while two of our tubeless bunch have managed to burp their tyres in the last few weeks.

Obviously I'm now due four punctures in a ride.

Anonymous

Definitely been bad omens in our rides, along with Stan having his spewing it's stuff all over due to a rip in the sidewall. Just as I'd decided I was going to give it a try. Was convinced when I tried Tony's bike.

We'll see. I'm sure if I get them inflated it will be a source of fun watching mine burp and splurt.

Though finally got a puncture in my tubes after four years, and as I'd run out of tubes went to patch it up and turns out it had three! Looking like pinch flats all at the same time. That does encourage me on the tubeless side, but then once in four years... is that really hassle? I think not.

mrmonkfinger

deadkenny wrote:

So what compressor should I be looking at?

coke bottle + 2 old valves, takes 20 minutes to make (standard disclaimer - it might explode, give you syphilis, etc)
remove valve core
wipe some soapy water around the bead


works great for me

milko9000

deadkenny wrote:

Definitely been bad omens in our rides, along with Stan having his spewing it's stuff all over due to a rip in the sidewall. Just as I'd decided I was going to give it a try. Was convinced when I tried Tony's bike.

Are you sure it wasn't just his Black Chili Contis though?

deadkenny wrote:

but then once in four years... is that really hassle? I think not.

Indeed!

allthegearnoidea

if you dont want to go the diy compressor with the bottles then pop down you rlocal tyre shop, take a packet of cookies and 20 seconds on the air line and you'll be sorted, valve core out makes a Lot of difference!!

yes tubes work, but tubeless also works, and is a Noticable difference to how the bike feels when done, for tubes on the back of the HT i had to run around 45psi to stop pinching, tubeless i can run 30 with no issues!

cat_with_no_tail

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Tubes.

Or stop being such a cheapass mo-fo and get proper tubeless instead of trying to "ghetto" it and ending up spending 3x more before getting fed-up and declaring tubeless to be shlt. I honestly don't understand why people spend thousands on a bike then cut corners on things like tyres.

pilch

all the above...

...and

Hang the wheel off something so that its not resting on the floor, bang it up quick with a compressor/pop bottle thing, removable valves make all the difference...

Anonymous

Turns out my one CB 'tubeless' valve I've got doesn't have a removable core. I don't have another but can ghetto one apparently from an old tube.

YeehaaMcgee

allthegearnoidea wrote:

pop down you rlocal tyre shop, take a packet of cookies and 20 seconds on the air line and you'll be sorted

Well that's certainly convenient.
I guess it's the MTBing version of "get a responsible adult to help you with this bit"

cooldad

All I can say is this thread is a good reason to be lazy. I could have fixed 100 punctures in the time it's taken to faff. About a lifetimes worth.

allthegearnoidea

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Well that's certainly convenient.
I guess it's the MTBing version of "get a responsible adult to help you with this bit"

So much is take it to your LBS to sort out, so why not just pop down your local tyre place too! :-D

YeehaaMcgee

allthegearnoidea wrote:

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Well that's certainly convenient.
I guess it's the MTBing version of "get a responsible adult to help you with this bit"

So much is take it to your LBS to sort out, so why not just pop down your local tyre place too! :-D

Very little requires taking a bike to the LBS - but changing tyres is a fairly routine thing to do on a mountain bike.

bails87

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

allthegearnoidea wrote:

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Well that's certainly convenient.
I guess it's the MTBing version of "get a responsible adult to help you with this bit"

So much is take it to your LBS to sort out, so why not just pop down your local tyre place too! :-D

Very little requires taking a bike to the LBS - but changing tyres is a fairly routine thing to do on a mountain bike.

Well if you have a problem when you're out it's easily sorted by bringing the compressor with you.

In a trailer.

Of course, you're going to need an engine to help lug that extra weight around.....

allthegearnoidea

Lol! Quite a few comments about the forum suggesting 'take it to your LBS' but I did mean to put a Smiley at the end of the sentence! ;-)

cloudynights

buy a compressor, makes blowing up tubeless tyres easy, can use it to clean of bike too, and no more trips to garage to blow up car tyres, if you got the right tools makes the job so easy, using a foot pump is like trying to knock a 4" nail in with a pein pin hammer

cooldad

cloudynights wrote:

buy a compressor, makes blowing up tubeless tyres easy, can use it to clean of bike too, and no more trips to garage to blow up car tyres, if you got the right tools makes the job so easy, using a foot pump is like trying to knock a 4" nail in with a pein pin hammer

MTFU I used a track pump on my car, worked fine. Although I did get the youngster to do the actual pumping while I supervised.

YeehaaMcgee

cloudynights wrote:

buy a compressor, makes blowing up tubeless tyres easy

kaBOOOOM!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ght8VpVCei0