Morris Minor Owners Club

I have a very slow leak on one of my wheel rims, where the inner of the wheel is riveted to the rim. I am obviously running tubeless tyres so explains my slow pucture so I thought.

Is there anyway round this other than fitting a tube, which I am reluctant to do. I was wondering whether this injectable sealant stuff would help, or I read somewhere that there is a tape you can wrap round the rim inside that will seal, but I cant find anything.

Does anyone have any suggestions please.

Cant see why you dont want to use a tube?It guarantees that the leak will be fixed.Otherwise I would expect a bead of silicon,tiger seal,that sort of stuff should do the job as they retain some flexibility once they go off.

I agree, best cure is to fit a tube.

By all means try the injected sealant...and let us know!

Regarding tubeless tyres on riveted rims:-
Section 'O', page 0.7 of the BMC Minor wksp manual states that loss of air from a rivet can be cured by peening over the rivet heads.

From an interest point of view, I mentioned this sealant stuff when I had some tyres fitted, new cars it appears don't have spares anymore! I was told that people have had problems with wheel balance after injecting the material, as when parked it can 'creep' and settle more around one part of the tyre, then after getting a rebalance only to find it happens again next time it's parked for any length of time. Sounds plausible I suppose.

Well, I popped up the garage and bought a can of tyreweld.

Deflated the tyre, put about half the can in and re-inflated it, stuck the wheel back in the water butt (don't laugh, makes a very convenient water bath big enough to get the wheel in), and no leaks. It was a very very tiny leak, certainly not hissing out.

Will see how it goes, long term as Phil suggests is get the tyre taken off, get a dolly and peen the rivets over again, but will see what happens with this, time will tell. Report back soon.

Did you spread the gel by taking it out for a 'run' on the car? The centrifugal force of course is rather going to plaster the gel over the tyre - rather than on the wheel rim........

No, rather than fling it round the inner of the tyre I gently rolled the wheel up and down the drive several times, hoping this would encourage it to the rim instead. It lost 15 psi in a week so will be easy to see, and no bubbles in the water.

Not sure how the stuff works, but it seems to have done.

Its all I have in my VW Touran, a large can of goo and a compressor, apparent that writes the tyre off, never tested it yet though and I do lots of miles.

You will find now though that if you get a puncture a garage won't repair the tyre due to the tyre weld inside, I had to scrap a perfectly good tyre with at least 10k left on it on the wife's mini due to the previous owner repairing the tyre with sealant.
I know tyres are not as expensive for a minor but if now you have to replace the tyre you may have the same problem again.

Its because they need to clean it off before they can stick a patch on the inside,but the excuse is normally used by the
likes of quick fit etc,to sell you a new tyre,smaller fitting garages just do it and stick a couple of quid on the repair/Or so I am told by my local tyre place.

When you have the tyre off the wheel you can use a little JB Weld on the inside for a more definite repair. Had the same happen in one wheel, it would go flat in a couple of days before and now so far no air has escaped at all in 8 months.

This stuff (Holts) is not supposed to not write the tyre off, and I use a small independent for tyres, who always does a great job and also does the tyres on the company car. Certainly wouldn't even take a push bike to those quick fitters.

The Minor is only a hobby car anyway, does not do many miles and will be pretty much laid up in October anyway, the odd run on a dry salt free day over the winter.

While shes laid up I may get someone to whizz the tyre off for me, JB weld is great stuff and I like that idea. I can clean the tyre out then and put things back to order.

It will keep her going for the next few weeks of some weekend runs.

The important question to be asked is 'why is the rivet leaking'?
Has more than one rivet come loose or are the rest of the rivets on their way to becoming loose?
It is no good just covering the rivet that is currently leaking - it must be determined why it is loose/leaking.
I would recommend that the tyre is removed from the wheel and all of the rivets on that wheel checked for serviceability and if loose peened as recommended by BMC.
It will not get better on its own only worse. Better to be safe than sorry.

Wheels are two a penny, get another and have done with it!

Les
I totally agree with you and the leaking wheel should be cut up or destroyed so it cannot be used by anyone else.