Commandment Five: Put Some More Sealant In There

I promise you, you’re not using enough. Five times out of ten, this is the problem. The other five? You taped badly.

Yucky

Sealant is gross. It’s basically thin, wet glue.

It’s not going to get all over your living room

Generally speaking, though, you won’t have to deal with it much...if you pay attention to my five commandments of tubeless tires above. The people who have sealant all over their living room were probably trying to make a regular clincher tire into a tubeless tire on a regular rim (even though they’ll never admit it). Also, just do it in your garage or in the shower. Easy clean up.

It’s not going to be a pain in the ass on the road

Most punctures will seal right up without you noticing. The ones that don’t can be sealed with a Dynaplug. All the same, bring a tube and a tire lever; you can pour out the extra sealant if you run into a real disaster, and in the end, you won’t end up any dirtier than a normal wet-day flat repair.

How-To

Mise en Place

Get everything out that you’re going to need. Lay out newspaper and organize your workspace.

Tape and scissors should be within reach.

Valve core remover and extra valve cores near each other.

A metal bowl with a clean shop rag, and soapy water.

A spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol and another clean rag.

Tires, sealant, and whatever injector/measurement device you’re planning to use, ready to go.

Slow down. Have a beer. Try NA beer from Athletic Brewing – it’s good, and TBD25 gets you 25% off your first order. Bet you didn’t see that ad coming, did you?

Clean!

Get everything really, really clean. Remove your old tape. Knock/brush whatever dirt/grime you’ve accumulated off the rims, inside and out. Soap up and hose down. Dry, then wipe down with the isopropyl.

Tape

Tubeless tape is fragile stuff, and specific to the width of your rim. I like Stan’s tape – it’s yellow, so you can see where it is and where it isn’t. Keep your oily, grubby fingers off the rim bed and off the sticky part of the tape, start opposite the valve, and slowly apply the tape, taking care to gently push it into the center channel. All of these tapes are relatively stiff, and prone to lengthwise splitting if you’re not careful.

To that point – I’m not sure if this is science, but you want to be sure the tape is mostly conforming to the profile of the rim before you apply the tire, but you don’t need to smooth out every single bubble. But be absolutely sure you press the edges of the tape into the crevice between the bead seat and the sidewall of the rim. This will prevent it from getting peeled off during tire installation.

Valve

To the point about the lengthwise splitting, avoid using a knife to make the hole in the tape for your valve. This has a tendency to create way too big a hole in the tape and you’ve got to start over. Bummer. Use something with a small, sharp point, like a pick. If you can, use the valves that your rim manufacturer makes – that way you know they’ll match their contour.

Sometimes, cores get clogged up. I haven’t found a way to clean them out, so be prepared to swap in a new one over time.