Red Neck Engineering Tire Repair
Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 9:04PM It has come time to rollout on the 2019 #33 rolling Circus and the first stop on this year’s tour was at my buddy Jess’s house.
It is always a fun filled month long extravaganza of wood choppin’, fence bildin’, gun shootin’, grass mowin’, tracter runnin’, an sumtimes motersicle tare fixin’! For those Non Red Necks reading this article here is your translation. We split wood for the winter, repair perimeter fences, sight in newly mounted scopes, mow and weed eat (a lot), remove stumps with a backhoe, and do our best to fix flats or improperly installed tires.
The motorcycle tire repair was the one that got my interest this time. Mostly because I am usually the one doing the fixing and although it is normally tedious and boring mounting and dismounting tires it rarely involves me running away!
This time it was my buddy Hose-b (Jess) doing the hands on since it was his bike. A quick side note: Jess will call me Jose’ so it only makes sense that he must be Hose-b! So back to the bike tire, Hose-b was being bugged by the fact that his tire was slightly out of round since the bead never seated on the original tire install. He decided we should remount or seat his tire to run true and I said it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I have mounted literally hundreds of tires in my 40ish years of riding. However, let me make this disclaimer before we begin, I have always used soap and water or just plain water when out on the trail during my tire repair.
So Hose-b removes the wheel, dismounts the tire in an attempt to seat the bead. He then reinstalls and starts to use WD-40 as he mounts and attempts to pressurized it to seat the bead. I am not in charge, but offer the information that I always use soap and water. Hose-b sees this extra slippery solution as the answer to seating the stubborn bead on the rim. Ok, you go boy! I just may learn something here. So as I watch him pump the tire up sure enough here comes the stubborn bead creeping out to the rim. I am thinking maybe it is time to stop pumping it up and wait for the bead to completely seat itself on the rim. Jose-b obviously is in the camp of, if a little air is good a lot must be better. After this experience I think 80 PSI or so may be too much.
Just about that time I am getting a little nervous and start to say something when I notice the tire has reached the seated position and is still creeping outward. Oh CRAP! That thing is not going to stop and I begin to voice my observations but decide I can run and talk at the same time! As I turn to run in a panic it never occurred to me that the bench and the stand alone vice were in my exit path. I bounced off the bench just as I heard the explosion when the tire slipped off the rim. I careened into the vice gouging my hand and arm which helped slow my retreat. Boy am I lucky or what!
So when the dust settled we both survived with only a couple scrapes. Hose-b had a surprised look on his face and had obviously retreated in the other direction, with no obstructions! Lucky him! Once I got a paper towel and stopped the bleeding on my arm it became pretty funny cause no one was really injured. Remember when I said I just may learn something here? Well, I did. I learned that I will NOT use WD-40 as my tire mounting medium.
So we dismounted the tire, got a new tube and reinstalled everything using a little soap and water. Old Skool!
#33
“Be daring, try something new”
Reader Comments (2)
It wasn't the wd-40, it was the 80 psi in the tube.
for some reason when the wd-40 was mentioned I instantly thought FIRE would be involved and some sort of resulting explosion... I got the explosion part correct anyhow..!! but what's the real moral of the story here ?? Always make sure theres a clear path to safety when your homie is showing you a new trick !! :)