Fixing Tubes

rubertoe

I have attempted to fix a tube only once over the last 4 years without much success and not for 20 years before that (with more sucess).

Now, I have a whole load of tubes that have holes in them and rather than keep buying them I thought it would be better to repair them.

Can someone suggest me a good kit, or will self seal patches do?

and what are your top tips?

Sharkyssurfers

park tools glueless patches are pretty good, have just brought the zefal ones but havent had chance to to use them yet, i think someone on here said that tesco's puncture kits where good as well.

davis

I wouldn't necessarily bother with the glueless self-seal ones for a longer term repair (they're great for roadside, but they're more expensive and not *quite* as reliable in my experience), but every other "proper" kit that I've used seems to be pretty much identical: they're just patches and vulcanizing solution!

The trick seems to be letting the vulcanizing stuff nearly set, then firmly put the patch in place. I might leave something vaguely heavy on top if I've got time to spare.

Seriously though, it's not hard. JFDI.

rolf_f

As above (except I don't think that glueless patches are any good for roadside either!!) - traditional patches give a bond tougher than the inner tube itself. Glueless are just stickers. I once bought a packet - of the ones I used, only one patch lasted a decent length of time but failed after a later puncture. The glueless patches don't contract on deflation in the same way as the rubber does so the deflation caused the rubber to peel off the patch. It lasted a couple of years but that isn't as good as permanent!

You can get sheets of traditional puncture patch for very little that you can cut to shape yourself - Halfords do them.

tgotb

I've never had much luck with glueless patches; they seem to work fine for a while, but end up developing slow leaks a month or two later. I quite like the Cure-C-Cure kits, nice feather-edged patches.

My top tips:
Roughen the tube thoroughly, and make sure you remove any ridges in the repair area
Replace the sandpaper when it stops being effective
Look for the item that caused the original puncture; quite often it'll be sat there in the tyre ready to cause another one when you put everything back together
It only takes a few minutes to do a proper repair; if you get a puncture and you're not cold/wet/in a massive hurry you might aswell fix it properly by the side of the road. It'll take less time overall than swapping the tube and then having to find time to repair the original one when you get home
If your repair fails, don't try to repair the repair (unless you need it to get home), bin the tube
If you use CO2 cylinders for repairs on the road, let all the gas out of your tyre when you get home and reinflate with a track pump

meanredspider

TGOTB wrote:

I've never had much luck with glueless patches; they seem to work fine for a while, but end up developing slow leaks a month or two later. I quite like the Cure-C-Cure kits, nice feather-edged patches.

Wow - Cure-C-Cure - that takes me back to when I was fixing punctures as a kid (and I'm 48 now...)

Question: the backing on some of these patches (Tesco for instance) is a bagger to remove the way that I was taught (from the middle outwards - thus avoiding lifting the patch). What do others do?

phy2sll2

TipTop is the way to go...

There are some on ebay

meanredspider

Oh - and the other thing I was taught was to pre-glue the tube with the rubber solution. Let that fully dry. The glue again and apply the patch whilst tacky. Seemed to work well.

davis

TGOTB wrote:

Roughen the tube thoroughly, and make sure you remove any ridges in the repair area
Replace the sandpaper when it stops being effective

I just use a brick in a nearby wall... They last for ages!

sketchley

Just wait until someone is going 20 tubes at £2 each buy a load and stop worrying..... I carry a puncture repair kit for emergancy only. Puncture = new tube.

rolf_f

Sketchley wrote:

Just wait until someone is going 20 tubes at £2 each buy a load and stop worrying..... I carry a puncture repair kit for emergancy only. Puncture = new tube.

That's depressingly wasteful and you should really be ashamed of yourself. How much are you paid? £2 every five minutes (the time it takes to fix a patch including boiling the kettle and making the cup of tea) equates to £24 an hour, £888 per week, £46,176 per year. That's how much you need to earn to break even on the binning method never mind the environmental waste.

And what is there to worry about anyway? If you can't fix an inner tube, you shouldn't really be allowed outside the house on your own....

rubertoe

Rolf F wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Just wait until someone is going 20 tubes at £2 each buy a load and stop worrying..... I carry a puncture repair kit for emergancy only. Puncture = new tube.

That's depressingly wasteful and you should really be ashamed of yourself. How much are you paid? £2 every five minutes (the time it takes to fix a patch including boiling the kettle and making the cup of tea) equates to £24 an hour, £888 per week, £46,176 per year. That's how much you need to earn to break even on the binning method never mind the environmental waste.

And what is there to worry about anyway? If you can't fix an inner tube, you shouldn't really be allowed outside the house on your own....

As someone else has said in the forum on previous occasions - I havent got £5 to waste everytime I need to fix a puncture. hence the reason for me starting this thread and why I have a mountain of tubes at home.

It would be useful if someone could talk me through the process.

porlyworly

Has anyone else experienced the glue melting in the searing heat we've had recently? I'm absolutely convinced this is the reason why two tubes on separate bikes which I had repaired punctures with patches (and both bikes seemed fine for weeks) both failed at the weekend. Checked both tubes and the air was escaping from the repaired patch.

CiB

How to fix a puncture?

Inflate tube to make it round, and find the hole. Usually dead easy, just run it past your best ear and when you hear hissing stop. The tip of your tongue is ideally suited for locating the exact centre of the hole, and doubles as a marker when you find it - a quick dab shows where you need to put the patch.

Draw a circle round it with a biro if it's only a tiny hole. Get a bit of sandpaper and take the smooth shinyness off the tube around the hole. If the tube has gone down reinflate it a bit, then dob a bit of glue obver the hole and smear it round to form a thin layer tht's big enough for the patch to cover. Leave it for a couple of minutes to go off. Normally this is time spent identifying the cause in the tyre, but yours are all old stock.

In winter it's best to patch at home as the glue & patch vulcanise properly when warm, so I'll put the patch on a radiator before I start so that it's warmed through when it comes to putting it in place.

You want the tube to be inflated to about the size that it is in the tyre during this whole process, so that it's easier to sand it down evenly, the glue goes on evenly, and the escaping air makes handy target for the centre of the patch.

Once the glue's dried off peel the backing off the patch and apply it smoothly & evenly to the tube. Rub a bit of chalk or talcum powder over the rest of the glue and it's ready to refit.

That sounds far too complex, but reality is inflate, identify, mark, sand, glue, wait, stick, refit. Properly glued patches are stronger than the tube, and the most likely causes of failure are not removing the original cause, not sanding the tube, too much glue or getting greasy paw prints on the patch.

CiB

PorlyWorly wrote:

Has anyone else experienced the glue melting in the searing heat we've had recently? I'm absolutely convinced this is the reason why two tubes on separate bikes which I had repaired punctures with patches (and both bikes seemed fine for weeks) both failed at the weekend. Checked both tubes and the air was escaping from the repaired patch.

No. If the patches come away from the tube they didn't vulcanise [morph] properly.

graham.

I seem to remember someone here recommend that, when fitting a new tube, pre-patch it and save a load of time and effort at the road side.
I've followed that advice and never had a problem!

kelsen

Rolf F wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Just wait until someone is going 20 tubes at £2 each buy a load and stop worrying..... I carry a puncture repair kit for emergancy only. Puncture = new tube.

That's depressingly wasteful and you should really be ashamed of yourself. How much are you paid? £2 every five minutes (the time it takes to fix a patch including boiling the kettle and making the cup of tea) equates to £24 an hour, £888 per week, £46,176 per year. That's how much you need to earn to break even on the binning method never mind the environmental waste.

And what is there to worry about anyway? If you can't fix an inner tube, you shouldn't really be allowed outside the house on your own....

Whilst I don't advocate Sketchley's blatant disregard for our dear old planet, I very much doubt he punctures continuously every 5 mins between the hours of work every week over the course of a year! Even if he does, your calculation does not take into account the energy required to boil a kettle every 5 mins whilst waiting for the rubber to vulcanize!

rolf_f

kelsen wrote:

Whilst I don't advocate Sketchley's blatant disregard for our dear old planet, I very much doubt he punctures continuously every 5 mins between the hours of work every week over the course of a year! Even if he does, your calculation does not take into account the energy required to boil a kettle every 5 mins whilst waiting for the rubber to vulcanize!

Excellent! I'm currently reading Bad Science and you've pretty much summarized the whole book in two sentences!

sketchley

I puncture about 5 or 6 times a year. I've purchased about £45 worth of tubes (about 20 tubes) (bulks buys) in last 3 years. That's £15 a year and I've got 5+ tubes in stock. Sure I could have brought 3 x puncture repair kits at £5 each and saved my self £10 a year. If I was in a position where £10 a year really made a difference I'd not go to the pub for a week (£5 a pint) and drink at home instead (£2 a pint) 3 beers and I could afford the luxury of throwing tubes away when I puncture.

p.s. If someone could convince me on the real environmental impact of throwing a tube away rather than patching it I *might* change my mind.

davmaggs

I'd dispute all the figures given above somewhat as patches and glue aren't coming in at the prices quoted £5 a go, and accounting for your time based on wages is daft when the biggest time sink is taking the punctured tube out and swapping in the good one and buying new tubes every time doesn't rid you of that. Most people watch hours of TV or surf internet nonsense for hours a week so equating your time with real money doesn't stack up at all.

My system for what it's worth is not to put the repaired tube back in straight away, instead I use a new one (or previously repaired one) and get the bike roadworthy as fast as possible. I then apply the patch there and then on the tube I just removed, but rather than wait watching it I put it to one side to dry off ready for the next time. I even do this on road-side repairs, and its saved me twice from second punctures. It's seconds to apply glue, which is probably a tiny percentage of the whole process of a puncture.

I also think that repairing things is a man skill and vital to self-worth. If you don't repair things you slowly die inside until such time as you think IKEA is a good day out.

edit; typo

veronese68

Rolf F wrote:

kelsen wrote:

Whilst I don't advocate Sketchley's blatant disregard for our dear old planet, I very much doubt he punctures continuously every 5 mins between the hours of work every week over the course of a year! Even if he does, your calculation does not take into account the energy required to boil a kettle every 5 mins whilst waiting for the rubber to vulcanize!

Excellent! I'm currently reading Bad Science and you've pretty much summarized the whole book in two sentences!

Very good book, and he summarised a chunk of the book, but he missed the bit about "Dr" Gillian McKeith.

veronese68

Completely agree with Davmaggs about repairing stuff. Friends of mine thought I was insane for replacing the plug on my son's headphones. They would throw them away and buy new for £25, I went for the £3.99 plug and a bit of solder. Much more satisfying and less wasteful. Our old washing machine lasted 20 years, in that time I had to replace the bearings and a small bit of hose. Many people would have just thrown it away and bought a new one for either of those faults. The sheer volume of rubbish that we generate really grates with me.

pangolin

davmaggs wrote:

My system for what it's worth is not to put the repaired tube back in straight away, instead I use a new one (or previously repaired one) and get the bike roadworthy as fast as possible. I then apply the patch there and then on the tube I just removed, but rather than wait watching it I put it to one side to dry off ready for the next time. I even do this on road-side repairs, and its saved me twice from second punctures. It's seconds to apply glue, which is probably a tiny percentage of the whole process of a puncture.

I was once performing the walk of shame after my repair kit failed me (always carried a spare tube plus a repair kit since) and some kind gent gave me a tube. The trouble was it was one he had clearly repaired and set to one side as you describe. No problem with that, except I spent 5 minutes fitting it only for it to fail to inflate.

tgotb

pangolin wrote:

I was once performing the walk of shame after my repair kit failed me (always carried a spare tube plus a repair kit since) and some kind gent gave me a tube. The trouble was it was one he had clearly repaired and set to one side as you describe. No problem with that, except I spent 5 minutes fitting it only for it to fail to inflate.

Exactly. Only by fitting it straight back onto the bike, do you *know* that you've repaired it properly. Carrying a spare that's probably repaired is a bit like not carrying a spare on the grounds that you probably won't get a puncture.

I was also taught, as a kid, that pumping it up immediately after gluing is an important part of the repair process, as it compresses the patch against the tube.

davis

davmaggs wrote:

I also think that repairing things is a man skill and vital to self-worth. If you don't repair things you slowly die inside until such time as you think IKEA is a good day out.

This.

Although I'd say the satisfaction in fixing things isn't restricted to men!

EKE_38BPM

I'm not one for chucking an inner tube because of a small puncture. I think that is really wasteful.

I carry a spare new tube so what I do is fit the spare, fix the puncture when I get home and refit it. That way I always have a spare I can trust.

magibob

Little tip I remember My dad telling me.

When you put the tyre back on, line the logo on the tyre up with the valve. That way, if you do have a p*ncture, once you find where the hole in the inner tube is, you can measure against the tyre to find where the thorn/tack/tiny shard of glass is that caused it, and remove it.

Andy

itboffin

£1.99 from planet-x http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/TUP ... inner_tube

I think when I last bought a bunch they were £1.50

fill your boots, oh and I bought several traditional patch and glue kits from bike24.de for £0.90 each

rolf_f

davmaggs wrote:

I'd dispute all the figures given above somewhat as patches and glue aren't coming in at the prices quoted £5 a go, and accounting for your time based on wages is daft when the biggest time sink is taking the punctured tube out and swapping in the good one and buying new tubes every time doesn't rid you of that. Most people watch hours of TV or surf internet nonsense for hours a week so equating your time with real money doesn't stack up at all.

Errr, that was why I made the point! People who bin tubes when they puncture mostly complain about the time it takes to repair the tube - hence it is legitimate to quantify the value of that time which is next to nothing in comparison to peoples income.

The other complaint is the difficulty of repairing them though I suspect mostly this is a perceived difficulty rather than an experienced one. I find it hard to believe that almost anyone couldn't master the art of traditional puncture repair. And if they can't, I'd be suspicious of their ability to ride the bike in the first place!

Sketchley wrote:

I puncture about 5 or 6 times a year. I've purchased about £45 worth of tubes (about 20 tubes) (bulks buys) in last 3 years. That's £15 a year and I've got 5+ tubes in stock. Sure I could have brought 3 x puncture repair kits at £5 each and saved my self £10 a year. If I was in a position where £10 a year really made a difference I'd not go to the pub for a week (£5 a pint) and drink at home instead (£2 a pint) 3 beers and I could afford the luxury of throwing tubes away when I puncture.

1) Google Shopping search puncture repair kits. They don't cost £5. Less than half that easily. I often pick them up for nothing eg at CTC events, Bike Week etc.
2) You normally get about 8 patches in a kit. So that's 2 x £2 rather than 3 x £5. Stop being devious with the maths! You are spending £15 a year whereas repairing would cost about £1.30.
3) Yes, £10 divided by 365 isn't a lot but you can apply that to everything in life and end up much poorer. When you buy a new item of kit, do you search around the net and feel vaguely chuffed when you find that Ribble is charging £10 less than Wiggle?

By all means enjoy luxuries that are luxuries. But I'm not sure I understand how throwing something in the bin is a luxury. Bathing in champagne with Swedish supermodels is a luxury - throwing things in the bin isn't.

And as for the environmental angle - you could argue with some good cause that manufacturing and assembling a puncture repair kit is possibly more environmentally harmful than manufacturing an inner tube but I think it is probably fair to say that it is a good deal less harmful than manufacturing 8 inner tubes (and that assumes you buy a complete new puncture repair kit each time you run out of patches - if you have any sense, you just buy the glue and patches when they run out) - but also, what do you think happens to the inner tubes that you throw away? They end up in landfill forever more. Out of your 20 tubes in three years, I probably use about 2. So your inner tube landfill contribution is 10 times greater than mine. And I do a lot more miles than you!

Headhuunter

Sketchley wrote:

I puncture about 5 or 6 times a year. I've purchased about £45 worth of tubes (about 20 tubes) (bulks buys) in last 3 years. That's £15 a year and I've got 5+ tubes in stock. Sure I could have brought 3 x puncture repair kits at £5 each and saved my self £10 a year. If I was in a position where £10 a year really made a difference I'd not go to the pub for a week (£5 a pint) and drink at home instead (£2 a pint) 3 beers and I could afford the luxury of throwing tubes away when I puncture.

p.s. If someone could convince me on the real environmental impact of throwing a tube away rather than patching it I *might* change my mind.

I don't think it's a question of you specifically throwing away a few tubes a year which is going to bring on global climate change, it's you + everyone else who rides a bike + the general prevalent "throw away" attitude that we all have these days which fills landfill sites and poisons young kids in Asia employed to sift through our "recycled" rubbish, paid 1 penny per day.... As always in these cases, climate change is caused by a cumulative attitude and behaviour. Saying that throwing away a couple of tubes is not going to make a difference is like the Daily Mail reporting that it rained a lot last summer in Surrey so climate change must be a myth...

Mr.Duck

Those of you that buy tubes in bulk, do you have a favourite brand, or just go for the cheapest available?