Tires and Tubes Going Flat

[Kiloengineer]

I recently had a set of 16" rims sandblasted and powder coated and installed brand new BFG All Terrains, 235/85-16. I had bought these two-part (rivited) rims in England and they were brush painted green so I think they may have come off a military Land Rover. They have now been completely cleaned and all surfaces are in good shape. The rims have a large valve stem hole so the tire shop installed tubes in the tires. I asked the shop to also use some tape in the inside of the rim to cover the rivets and act like a bicycle rim strip to make sure the rivets don't abrade the tube. But with all of this, I have now had 3 flat tires in the past month. With the second flat we looked closely at the tube and found a very small puncture on the inside of the tube, but could not find anything on the rim to cause the puncture. Another interesting fact but I think a coincidence is that all of the flats have been on the front left position (3 flats, two different wheel/tires and all 3 with the tire on the front-left). I suppose it could be possible that the installers are pinching the tube on installation, but I think they are being very careful not two. Another potential issue might be that the tube valve stem does not fit the valve stem hole exactly, they are a little small and do not fit tight in the hole. I have not taken the third tube out yet because I wanted to get some idea of what is going on before going back to the shop.

My questions are: Anybody have a similar problem? Anyone know where I can buy the correct fitting tube with the correct size valve stem? Any reason why front left would be more succeptable to a flat?

Thanks for any help.

[yorker]

Did you remove all the labels from inside the tires? Use a lot of tire talc? The ribs on the inside of tubeless/radial tires will also wear on tubes. Did you use radial tubes?

also:

http://www.gemplers.com/product/7G/Valve-Hole-Bushing-TR13-Valve-in-5-8-Valve-Hole

If it was me though I'd just get 4 of thse and ditch the tubes. http://www.gemplers.com/product/171394/TR-15-1-1-4-Snap-in-Rubber-Valve-Stem

[Kiloengineer]

Yorker,
great tip about the larger valve stems or even the bushing, the larger stem sounds like a good way to go. I don't think they used any tire talc when installing, that could be a big part of the problem. And I don't know if they used radial tubes, although I am hoping they were smart enough to do that. I , however, was not smart enough to ask these questions. Do you think there might be any problems with leaks at the rivets if I did not use tubes?

[yorker]

I painted bead sealer on my rivers to ensure they didn't leak. You could paint them with regular paint or just about anything. Some people debate the existence of radial tubes- they do indeed exist but I most shops don't know the differences. A lot of people have used regular tubes in radial tires without problems but because of the ribs or other patterns that are inside tires they will wear on the tube without talc to alleviate it. I once had to repair a tube that had worn through from a small plastic tire inspection sticker- even the smallest things can wear through tubes because of all the flexing tires do.

Honestly when I went from tubes to tubeless the # of annoying punctures went way down. Now I am back on bias ply tires with tubes again and so far they have held air ok but given the choice I'd go tubless again with my next set. Tubes can be a real pain.

[SafeAirOne]

Propery installing tube-type tires is a dying art. Lots of tube-tpe tires use flaps inside the rim to protect the tube--Don't know if Rovers ever did though. Many flats in tubed wheels can be attributed to pinches in the tube due to folds in the tube tht were not worked out during installation. That's one of the primary purposes of the talc--To make it easy to work out any folds.

The purpose of the radial inner tubes when using radial tires is that the radial tires generate much more heat during use than bias ply tires and the radial-type tubes are able to take the heat much better than the regular inner tubes. At least that's the theoy I've always heard. I've never run inner tubes with radials.

As for the riveted tube-type rims, I've been using one with a tubeless radial installed as my spare tire for about 7 months now and it holds air just fine. I think the critical part was that the valve stem be able to seal to the rim. I think they installed one of those valve stems that has a nut that squeezes the rubber and expands it to sandwich the rim tightly between the sealng rubber.

[o2batsea]

The tubed BFG All terrains have been holding air just fine since 1996. Just checked 'em. 32 psi all around. Never any problems.