Re:Tire plugging

[<hofs@domain.elided>]

>Subject: Patching (Plugging) Radial Tires
>
>Reapers,
>
>I'd like to hear the groups recommendations on the best and worst things to
>look for in an emergency patch or plug kit for radial off road tires.  I've
>used the stringy fiber plugs before... the ones that are inserted into a hole
>with a screwdriver type tool.  But I see other type of plugs for sale... they
>look smooth and round... I can't see how they would stay in.
>
>Thanks,
>
>John

John,
My son runs the repair shop for the Sacramento area's largest commercial 
contractor. A million square feet concrete pour is nothing to them. The 
owner works on the basis that labor costs are the difference between 
making it big, and not making it. The Sacramento paper announced about a 
year ago that he was now a billionaire, so I guess that he knows 
something about making it. So what does this have to do with plugging? 
I'm getting there. 
When his crews are demolishing a building or such, it is not unusual for 
them to get a 100 or 200 nail holes in a front loaders tires. My son used 
a kit made by Safety Seal and plugged these holes and rarely if ever had 
a leak develop. The reason for the past tense will appear shortly. I 
bought 40 kits at about $50 each for myself and my friends who travel in 
the desert with me. I have one in each vehicle, so I don't have to 
remember to transfer them. The Safety Seal kit used a German technology 
to make the plugs and they look like a sticky gooey mess, but they work. 
After my John demonstrated one time, I've patched tears in tires by 
sticking 10 or 12 plugs in the tear and gotten to where I could more 
comfortably change the tire. Most recently, I tore a hole in my tire in 
the bottom of Barranca de Cobre in Chihuahua, and came up out of that 
canyon with maybe 20 plugs in the tire. As far as normal nail holes and 
such, it always works, and sometimes even approaches miraculous in its 
fixes.

Now for the not so great news. With radial tires, within a year or two, I 
seem to develop a slow leak around the plug and have to have the tire 
patched. Tire guys say it's because the radials flex so much and that 
makes sense to me. 

Now for some more good news. I guess Safety Seal's patents ran out or 
something, because some parts stores now carry a generic kit using these 
same sticky gooey plugs and they sell for under $30. The kits even come 
with the reamer that make the Safety Seal kits look like a tool bag for a 
proctologist. My John says that they seem as good as the Safety Seal. 
Safety Seal was handled by factory reps who came around to your shop, and 
I suspect the overhead, combined with the exclusivity of the product was 
the reason for the high cost. John's shop buys the plugs by the thousand. 
I don't think I'll ever use all the ones in the kit. We've patched maybe 
a 100 tires with the Safety Seal kit in the desert and always with good 
success. You hear a hiss, look for the leak, plug it quickly so that you 
don't have to dig out the compressor, and get on the "road" again.

Now you know about plugging.
John 


John Hofstetter  "Ol'Saline's Web Site" www.goldrush.com/~hofs
Founder of DARK  "DRIVERS AGAINST RIDICULOUS KRAP"
Life Member, National Rifle Association     California Rifle and Pistol 
Asc.
Member, Sierra Macintosh Users Group  Member, MacTwain Macintosh Users 
Group
Charter Member, FRIENDS OF DEATH VALLEY   Member, Blue Ribbon Coalition
Life Member, Association of California School Administrators
Owner of 79 Scout Terra "It's a legend"