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2009 Tours & Expeditions

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2009 TYRE & TUBE REPORT

"Unknown Ranges" Expedition & Other Tyre Issues from Tours

 

 We had a few interesting tyre problems this year so I’ll include those in this report which is normally only for the Expedition. A section dealing with tubes has also been added as we have had issues with tubes and now feel like we have got on top of those problems. Always there is something to learn, and each year I come away from the desert knowing a few more wrinkles about the tyre game for remote travel.

 Our annual expedition this time took place in what seems to be a forgotten piece of the Little Sandy and Great Victoria Deserts. During August 2009 we travelled 662 kms off-track exploring hills and ranges shown on the maps and noted in explorer journals. We had an extremely interesting 25 days. All six participating vehicles were required to fit heavy sidewall tyres, in this case MRFs were used exclusively. All tyres were mounted on Split Rims.

I failed to keep accurate records this year during the expedition so the following is from memory for causes of the problems etc.

 

Vehicle Tyres Flats Cause Comments
Land Rover
130 Defender
South Australia
BIAS
12 Ply "Super Miler"
3 3 x tread stakes, but one was unusual, it was an
old steel auger drill picked up on the Laverton
road (photo above)
Lead vehicle
669 kms Off-Track
Toyota Ute
79 Series
Victoria
All Steel Radials
14 Ply "Steel Muscle"
2 Very small sidewall stakes
Easy repairs
 
662 kms Off-Track
Land Rover
130 Defender
Victoria
BIAS
12 Ply "Super Miler"
1 Old patch from 2008 failed
New tube fitted
 
662 kms Off-Track
Toyota Ute
78 Series
South Australia
All Steel Radial
14 Ply "Steel Muscle L"
1 Slow leak from before trip start
repaired
 
662 kms Off-Track
Toyota
100 Series
NSW
All Steel Radial
14 Ply "Steel Muscle L"
5 Sidewall stakes & tube patch failures - glue
was too old. A silly mistake that made work
for this bloke!
 
474 kms Off-Track
Toyota
100 Series
South Australia
All Steel Radial
14 Ply "Steel Muscle"
11 Sidewall stakes were majority of problem.
One tube had more than one hole, sneaky.
Tube patch failure from old glue (see above)
 
662 kms Off-Track

 

Mick fixing tyres
 
Three stakes repaired in afternoon, a busier than normal day for punctures.

 

Tube Report 2008/2009

  The last few years I have noticed a problem with the tubes we use in our own Split Rims. We would get several slow leaks by the fourth or during the fifth of our scheduled trips. Without fail it would be a tiny rub somewhere in the area corresponding to the sidewall. No stake would ever be found, the tyre would be spotless inside so I couldn’t blame sand & grit intrusion. It took me a while to catch on to what was happening.

  I would always find the tube had thinned in the sidewall area. In fact with the heavy duty tubes we run the sidewall section would end up being more like "glad wrap" than a tube 1.5mm to 2mm thick. What seemed like the merest imperfection would develop into the tiniest hole and another slow leak would appear.

  I had been throwing a sprinkle of Talcum powder into the tyres before fitting the tube as is the standard practise, I thought I was doing a pretty good job, turned out I was wrong.

  Due to running low pressure for weeks and months at a time there was not enough talcum powder in the tyre to lubricate the tube for the great amount of flexing that was going on. Actually there was enough talcum powder but it was in the wrong spot. The way I had been doing it the bulk of the powder ended up in the tread area of the tyre. The most flexing occurs in the sidewalls, that is where the talcum powder needed to be.

  So when I fitted up tyres and tubes for the 2009 season (we always fit new tubes every season) I thought I would simply apply a good amount of talcum powder to both sidewall areas of the tyre, not just throw it into the bottom of the tyre which is the tread.

  To see how it went I stripped a tyre to inspect the tube on the last day of the season at Coober Pedy. What I found was very little or no thinning of the tube in the sidewall area, quite simply problem solved.

  All it took was a little thought and slight change of technique, easy.

 

A Couple of Odd Incidents with Tyres in 2009

A tubeless tyre with no damage but leaking very very slowly;

  Why would a brand new tubeless tyre have a very slow leak from day one? A camper trailer on one of the tours had this problem, the fellow had taken it back to the tyre joint and had them look at it. They couldn’t find anything wrong. It was only losing a few psi a week so the fellow didn’t worry about it and started his trip with us, fair enough.

  During our normal tyre repair demonstration we do every trip the fellow brought the problem up so we had a bit of a look. It wasn’t punctured or damaged obviously so out with the soapy water and we started to hunt for it. Before we did that we pumped it up to its maximum pressure some 65 psi, that should make it leak a bit quicker and make it easier to find the problem.

  Spraying soapy water around the bead (there wasn’t really anywhere else to look) we immediately found air leaking from near the wheel weights. First thought was that the weight clip had damaged the bead of the tyre, unlikely but that is what it looked like. Broke the bead, removed the wheel-weights. At a quick glance the bead wasn’t damaged so we re-inflated the tyre, no joy. So we had a very close look with only tiny amounts of soapy water at certain points and found that air was leaking out just beside where the wheel weight clip had been.

  Broke the bead again and had a very careful inspection. The bead had a tiny little indent on it and what made the dent was still there. Would you believe that one of the little rubber tits nearest the bead had been folded onto the bead during fitting and made enough of a gap to make it leak, that was a new one for me.

seal problem on tyre
 
An unusual slow leak, one of the rubber tits had been folded onto the bead during fitting and caused
a very slow leak of a few psi a week. Easy to fix!

 

A bad stone cut in a tyre that took a month of travelling to go flat;

  About halfway through a trip I noticed a pretty deep stone cut on the inside of a rear tyre. The tyre was still up and the damaged area showed no bulge from unseen damage so I figured it would be OK and I would look at it after the trip when I would have a close look at all the tyres. Part of our maintenance after an Expedition is to pull the tyres off the vehicle and dig out all of the stakes embedded in them. Normally I can half fill a condensed milk tin with little slivers of wood, a surprising little job.

  So later on I did inspect this cut and though it was deep, cutting several plies (our sidewalls have 6 plies), it felt and looked OK. I did not take the tyre off the rim. I felt it would be fine, wrong again.

  A month later on the last day of the last trip of the season coming through Mabel Creek Station I felt a tyre losing pressure so pulled up for a look. Yes it was that tyre, so I changed it and kept going. Later that afternoon in Coober Pedy I stripped the tyre to repair it and found the problem. The deep cut that I had let go had been deeper than I could see. It was actually through the tyre or very near it early on, but it had not cut the tube at that time.

  The Anne Beadell Highway in general is fairly corrugated so we run our tyres at pretty low pressure to save a bit of wear and tear on our poor old bus. So here again we had the problem of movement of the tyre and tube due to flexing. The small cut in the tyre (about 6mm) had taken quite a while to wear through the tube with this tiny movement, but eventually it did and we had a slow leak.

  I patched the tube, patched the tyre, put it back together, slipped it back on the vehicle and the next day we drove the 840 kms home to Salisbury. No drama.

Note to self - Don’t be lazy, have a better look next time……

We’ll see what happens next year.

Mick Hutton & Connie Beadell
Beadell Tours, October 2009 

 

 

 

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