Slime Update
Sep. 15th, 2008 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
webfarmerNo, not politics this time. I took a break to wheel my bikes out to the patio and slime their tubes. It went pretty well and I didn't get a lot of green goo on my hands, air gauge or pump. It's pretty simple.
Put the tires up so that the stem is about 11:00 position. Use the cap that comes on the Slime bottle to remove the core from the stem and release all the air. Then take the plastic protective bit off the bottle, put the pointy top back on and add the bit of plastic hose to the point. That hose slides over the threads of the stem to seal things up. Then you turn the bottle upside down and start squeezing the slime into the tube. There's a mark on the side of the bottle that tells you were the halfway mark is at for the first tire. Then you just add the rest for the second. Easy peasy.
I over-inflated the first tire a bit and got a bit of green stuff blow out at me snot-like as I let the air out to bring it down to a more appropriate pressure. No biggy. Most of it wiped off with a paper towel I had handy. I had a little bottle of water with me to do a brief clean-up. No explosions with green stuff flying all over the place. It's all good now. :)
I was warned that it wasn't good for "snake bite" flats. That's where you let the air get too low and the rim pokes a hole in the tire by the pinching action. Also the big blowout type events of pot holes and other such catastrophic events are not helped. Evidently this is primarily for sealing holes up to about an 1/8 of an inch that are along the tread side of the tire. Sidewall and rim side failures not included.
It adds a bit more weight and ran about $10 a bike to add but if it saves me just one flat, that will be worth the bother and cost for me.
Put the tires up so that the stem is about 11:00 position. Use the cap that comes on the Slime bottle to remove the core from the stem and release all the air. Then take the plastic protective bit off the bottle, put the pointy top back on and add the bit of plastic hose to the point. That hose slides over the threads of the stem to seal things up. Then you turn the bottle upside down and start squeezing the slime into the tube. There's a mark on the side of the bottle that tells you were the halfway mark is at for the first tire. Then you just add the rest for the second. Easy peasy.
I over-inflated the first tire a bit and got a bit of green stuff blow out at me snot-like as I let the air out to bring it down to a more appropriate pressure. No biggy. Most of it wiped off with a paper towel I had handy. I had a little bottle of water with me to do a brief clean-up. No explosions with green stuff flying all over the place. It's all good now. :)
I was warned that it wasn't good for "snake bite" flats. That's where you let the air get too low and the rim pokes a hole in the tire by the pinching action. Also the big blowout type events of pot holes and other such catastrophic events are not helped. Evidently this is primarily for sealing holes up to about an 1/8 of an inch that are along the tread side of the tire. Sidewall and rim side failures not included.
It adds a bit more weight and ran about $10 a bike to add but if it saves me just one flat, that will be worth the bother and cost for me.
