Tubeless tyres on Hunt rims. How the F*** do they seat?

Darius_Jedburgh

I've got a pair of Hunt 4 Season gravel wheels hung up in the garage. I'm thinking of putting them on my winter bike with tubeless tyres. Easy, so they say.
I've looked at the Hunt website and there is a nice little video on there where the man just flips an - unbranded - tyre onto the rim and blows it up with a standard track pump. Yeah, great. That's a promo video so a pinch of salt is needed, and access to the discarded chunks of film!!!
I've tried this. It's costing me a fortune in return postage for tyres that just won't seat. I can get them on no problem, but nothing else. I've tried a standard track pump, as shown in the video but no go. I've tried one of those airshot pumps but no go. I've been to the garage and used their compressor but no go, and I've pinched next doors compressor and have sweated buckets in failing to get any tyre to seat. Soap and water? Yes. A band round the tyre? Yes. What else is there to try?

Someone must have fitted their own tyres to these rims. Are they Kinlin rims, with a troublesome reputation? So, if you have fitted your own tyres then what sort did you use and how did you get them to seat first time on? I'm after winter quality tyres, not a skinny road race set.

Anyone able to help?

shirley_basso

Inner tube

Darius_Jedburgh

Well the idea is to get away from inner tubes. The roads I ride on are not main roads so are full of thorns, bits of glass and their own supply of snakebite inducing potholes. I'm peed off with punctures in the rain.

cycleclinic

Never had a problem. Searing tubeless tyres on hundreds of kinlins. What tyre. If you can mount the tyre by hand that's the problem.. you need more layers of tape. When its tight witha lever then the fit is right for the track pump.

Darius_Jedburgh

I've tried several tyres as suggested in the big thread on here. Non go anywhere near the rim edges but just lie in the central well. The wheels are supplied ready taped and the promo claims that any tyre will fit with no further adjustment. It will take a massive amount of tape to fill the gaps. The tyres are nowhere near the rim edges.

6wheels

Franco di Banco wrote:

I've tried several tyres as suggested in the big thread on here. Non go anywhere near the rim edges but just lie in the central well. The wheels are supplied ready taped and the promo claims that any tyre will fit with no further adjustment. It will take a massive amount of tape to fill the gaps. The tyres are nowhere near the rim edges.

I've used Hutchinson Sectors with good results, but gone back to tubes for now. Less messing around.

fenix

LBS ?

bradsbeard

thecycleclinic wrote:

Never had a problem. Searing tubeless tyres on hundreds of kinlins. What tyre. If you can mount the tyre by hand that's the problem.. you need more layers of tape. When its tight witha lever then the fit is right for the track pump.

As said above.

I have Hunt Aeros and it can take another taping of the rim to get a seal.

I use an Airshot to inflate. Let the air out slowly not in one hit.

Always got them inflated and sealed with little issues.

voicycle

Took me something like 5 layers of tape to get my GP5000TLs to go up with a track pump on my Kinlin rims (which I’m assured are what Hunt use). PITA but now I can even reinflate with a mini pump if needed.

Get a big roll of the Tesa generic tape to save some cash. Number 4289 I think. 60m rolls on eBay and the like for under £15.

joe_totale-2

If all else fails use the air compressor at a petrol station, it's always worked when nothing else will.

Darius_Jedburgh

Thanks guys.
Five layers of tape seems like overkill. If that's what is needed then there sounds like a major flaw in the design somewhere.
Don't want to go to LBS because if anything goes wrong I want to be able to handle it myself.
I've tried the garage - as in original post.
Last tyres I tried were the Hutchinsons. They went back like all the others.

voicycle

I’m totally misremembering. That 5 layer story was g-one speeds on a pair of WTB i23 rims which came with a synapse.

The kinlin/gp5000tl combo I thought I was describing still took 3 layers I think. Probably enough that It ought to be beyond what any manufacturer would call ‘normal’. But I’d already ridden 500+ miles on them tubed so my only other option was to buy new rims and have wheels rebuilt.

I thought it might even be user error given those were my first two attempts, but I’ve since picked up a pair of superstar MTB wheels (element rims which look and feel like kinlin as well) which only took 2 layers to inflate racing Ralphs with a track pump. And I’ve got some kysyrium elite USTs which go up like a dream using their supplied tyres straight out of the box.

It seems like if the rims are ‘value’ in any way then there’s always some amount of tape fixing that needs to happen. Hunt seem to be getting big enough that those days might be numbered though. And with an ETRTO standard on the scene now things should just keep getting easier. Of course that’s of no help to you in this instance...

lakesluddite

I have Hutchinson Fusion 28mm on my Hunt Wheels. They seated with no issues whatsoever, needed a couple of tops ups in the first two weeks, but are now holding fast really well. I've had the wheels for a while now, they are, I think, the aero disc or maybe 4 season wheel (they do tend to keep renaming things), so I suspect my internal rim width is 19mm? Not sure if as the rims keep getting wider, the more issues with getting the tyres to seat occur? What size is your internal width - and what size tyres are you trying to fit?

Darius_Jedburgh

I thought my rims were 19, but a quick look at the website seems to say 20mm, but things may have changed since I bought them. I bought the Fusions 28s after a recommendation on here. No chance they would inflate. The beads were nowhere near the rims whatever I did. Far to many big gaps to ever have a chance of getting any air to stay inside.

Matthewfalle

You'll probably shout at me but the last bike I built that had Hunts on it did exactly the same as you described before they ripped off the edge of the tyre that the rim hooks onto.

brand new wheels, brand new tyres. Happened 3 times during build process that included a call to Hunt to see if they knew of any glitches which they said they didn't.

Then happened to the bikes owner twice.

Running around, finding then having a right PITA fitting a new tyre to an obstinate rim the afternoon before the Etap was annoying.

Tubed it up in the end.

One of the reasons i don't rate them tbh.

but don't shout at me.

term1te

I've invested in one of these https://milkit.bike/en/product/milkit-booster/ I only bought the replacement valve head bit from Rose bikes, as I had an old Sigg drinking bottle, which is what they use as the air reservoir. Once you've got the rim sealed up nicely, this takes all the effort out of seating the tyre. I got it as I'd spent half an hour with a track pump trying to seat a new tyre. It was identical to the one I'd taken off, but just wouldn't seat, I must have used most of a bottle of washing up liquid and scared the neighbours with the frantic pumping. Great workout for your arms and back, but was I in a bad mood by the time I'd given up and put a tube in.

cycleclinic

I use 2 layers of tea 4289 on the kinlin xr 22t, 26t and 31t rims. Every tubeless tyre I ha e tries inflates with a track pump alone. Soapy water ensures this. The hunt aero wide is the xr31t. Setup is easy on this. I suspect you maY have an overlooked problem. A good mechanic should be able to solve.

964cup

I've built lots of wheels on XR22Ts; I also have many other tubeless wheelsets, including a lot of different carbon rims. Some rim/tyre combinations can be harder to seat than others, but you can always make it work. My order of business is usually:

Really carefully seat the tyre - make sure the valve is between the beads, not sitting under one of them.
Roll the wheel with the deflated tyre to even out the bead and help spread it to the edge of the rim bed.

Then:
1. 2 layers of tape, track pump - works for e.g Hutchinson Intensive on XR22T, other tyres with tight beads (although you may need soapy water to get even seating - see next step)
2. Soapy water on the bead, track pump
3. Soapy water, compressor (or Airshot) - usually easier with the valve core removed.
4. Add a layer of tape, repeat soapy water and compressor
5. Swear. This is essential.
6. Use up a gas cartridge. With a 16g cartridge I have never yet failed to seat a (road) tyre. You do need an inflator that opens wide straight away - you need to bang the tyre, not inflate it slowly. The idea is to get gas pressure inside the tyre as fast as possible, so it expands before the gas can escape through the unsealed bead. Note that most home compressors have a lot of capacity but not that much pressure - I think mine tops out at 120psi, but pretty quickly drops to 100; airshots start at 140psi. A typical 16g CO2 canister is at 900psi, so although it has much less total capacity it has a *much* higher initial flow rate.

IME Schwalbe Pro One 25c on Farsports Alps (a carbon tubeless rim I have been using for most of my builds recently) are probably the most trouble, almost always needing a gas can; Mavic Yksion 30c allroads on whatever rim Kinesis use for the Crosslight are the easiest I've ever found - I think you could probably seat those with a pocket pump.

Note that I have at no point mentioned adding sealant. Unless I *know* the tyre is going to seat first time (e.g. Mavic Yksion All-Roads, which you could seat by blowing into the valve stem, I reckon) I always do that after I've seated the bead, through the valve stem. This is important because a) a failed inflation with a compressor or airshot will splatter sealant everywhere (and the sealant gets into the compressor nozzle) and b) using a gas can will freeze the sealant, which is bad. Since you have to empty out all the CO2 after using a can anyway (because otherwise it leaks out slowly because butyl rubber is permeable to CO2) you might as well put the sealant in later. Sometimes a tyre will seat but then leak, because either the tyre isn't really very tubeless or the rim isn't (or you ballsed up the tape, usually at the valve) but once you've got it to seat you can usually add sealant and then get it to seal with a track pump. Give the wheel a good spin once you've mounted the tyre and added sealant, to get the sealant properly distributed.

...and one more thing. Make sure the tape you're using is wide enough. Stans normal issue 21mm tape, as well as being not very good, isn't wide enough for modern rims. You want some tape to lap up the inside of the rim bead (although obviously not overlap the hook itself). My favourite tape is BBB 25mm, which stretches on really well, although you do often need an extra layer as it's fairly thin. The Bontrager stuff we use in the shop isn't too bad either (although again the 21mm is too narrow) - i don't know who makes it - it's not Stans, even though their sealant is.

Darius_Jedburgh

Wow. Some interesting stuff there guys. Many thanks.

Just ordered some tape from Cycle Clinic. Then I've just got to decide which tyres to try next

freebs

Second poster is right. Use a tube, leave overnight and the tyre gets the shape of the rims. Then try again tubeless.

Darius_Jedburgh

Doh. Silly me. I didnt read his post that way. I can see the logic in that. Thank you.

shirley_basso

In fairness, I didn't write it that way either, I was being sarcastic. If it works though.....

Darius_Jedburgh

I read it a being sarcastic too, but it's worth a try. Thanks for the inadvertent help.