slow leak on mower tire

[The motor guy]

The left front castor tire has a slow leak on my zero turn mower. The leak is kind of random actually cause at first I thought maybe the bead came unseated on the trailer. Anyways I filled it up with my portable air tank and it was fine for like 2 weeks. Well today I noticed it was completey flat and needs air. This time it went flat just sitting there. What's the best way to fix this? It seems to hold air for a couple days. Not sure why it was flat initially and held air for like 3 weeks after that. Would slime work in this case? I'm kind of irritated. The mower only has 40hrs on it. I actually mowed a yard with it flat and didn't even realize it until I got to the back yard. These zero turn mower frames don't flex much.

 

[Oldmoparguy1]

Put a tube in it.

 

[The motor guy]

Originally Posted By: Oldmoparguy1
Put a tube in it.


So what about the tire stem if I do that? I do believe the stems are skinny on inner tubes and don't seal allowing dirt inside. Also, how do I break the bead on the tire?

 

[mrsilv04]

You can try slime, will probably do what you need it to.

If that doesn't work, then resort to other measures such as a tube. But before putting a tube in, examine the tire very carefully to make sure it doesn't have something such as a small tack, nail, or thorn in it.... that will only put a hole in the tube and put you back where you started.

 

[Kestas]

I believe in first doing a proper diagnosis before attempting a fix. You may find that the leak is something like a bad valve and you won't have to slime it or buy a tube.

Overpressure the tire. Then coat the tire with a solution of soapy water. The leak should present itself.

 

[Nick1994]

Yeah put some Slime in it

 

[NHGUY]

LiquiTube.Way better than Slime.

 

[Rand]

on an tractor slime is fine. I had some wheels on the rear pto mower that were cracked like you wouldn't believe.

put in some slime.. The sides of the tires looked like a green spiderweb. Now holding on year 2.

The replacement tires were 60$ each.(needed 2)

 

[ragtoplvr]

Slime is water based and will rust the [censored] out of the rim

Also slime is temporary, most likly it will get too firm in a few years, the leak will come back, the rim will be badly rusted and have to be replaced, and the tire will get ruined so it can not be reused when you try to remove it over the rusted rim.

DAMHIK

Break it down, cut out the old valve stem, and put in a tube, add slime to the tube. even if the slime gets hard it will not rust the rim, and you can add more. Never mow with the tube low, the tire will walk on the rim and pull the stem in and ruin the tube.

A clean tire on a clean rim will come off. It will need some lube.

You can buy tire irons at harbor freight.

Rod

 

[Nick1994]

I had Slime in my ATV wheel for over 6 years now, recently got a new tires for it and the wheel had no hint of rust. I didn't even clean the wheel it's still gooey.

 

[ShotGun429]

I use slime as a last resort, yes it works but creats a mess later, as the poster said before me: soapy water and the leak will present itself, i use a car tire type plug in these, some of my lawn care tires here have dozens of plugs in them....im luckly enough to have many Honey Locust trees on my 21 acre estate, which have thousands of 6-8 inch thorns on them that,fall off and lay everywhere on the ground near them. you got 40hours before a flat?.... ive never went more than two hours on any tire on my mower fleet before a repair. Gregg -- Ohio

 

[mattwithcats]

Slime,

not the aerosol stuff...

 

[The motor guy]

I found the leak. Looks like a sliver of metal. I literally need tweezers to pull it out. Tried needle nose pliers, but that just broke off the tiny part Ican grab.

 

[The motor guy]

I heard it's a pain to take these castor tires off compared to the bigger rear tires.

 

[kd5byb]

Slime is how I fixed the annoying intermittent leak on my now 20 year-old John Deere STX-38.

 

[Nick1994]

You can still slime it. Otherwise you can actually get some JB Weld and patch the outside

 

[The motor guy]

Personally I'd like to have it taken off and have a patch installed from the inside, but I think just sliming it is probably the quickest option.

 

[Traction]

It should be all too obvious. Just spray it down with soapy water to find the leak first, and only then ask how to fix it.

 

[Traction]

Sorry, missed the post that you found the leak. I never use plugs for car tires, but they work great on mower tires. I would try that first, before removing the tire. Small tires can be very difficult to remove even with the right tools.

 

[The motor guy]

Originally Posted By: Traction
Sorry, missed the post that you found the leak. I never use plugs for car tires, but they work great on mower tires. I would try that first, before removing the tire. Small tires can be very difficult to remove even with the right tools.


I went to a few local shops and the best one was our local discount tire cause they have adaptors for the tire machine and allows them to do rims down to 4". Nobody seems to carry tire plugs anymore, so I went ahead and had them put a tube in it. I just went down to home depot and bought an inner tube that was close to the size and it seems to work great. This one had slime in the inner tube, which I didn't want but oh well it's fixed. They unmounted and remounted the tire for 5 bucks. Not even worth messing with at that price.