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Skinny nail in the tire.

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Got back home today and found a nail in a relatively new tire..:doh:


Any suggestions ?
 
Manufactures would say replace it. But Ive plugged and patched my own tires and just remeber its there. I wouldnt go for any top speed runs or road trips on it but around town short trips. Should be alright.
 
The right way to do it is to take the tire off the rim and do a plug/patch from the inside. You may have a hard time finding a shop that will do that on a motorcycle tire. But if you do some searches you may be able to buy them online and do it yourself.

I once bought a bike with the front tire repaired with a gummy worm. I didn't know it at the time, and put nearly 5,000 miles on that tire before it started to leak slowly. With a small hole like you describe, I would probably trust a gummy worm, but that's your call.

Avoid the Stop n Go plug kits. I've heard too many stories of those plugs being spit out at speed. And if your tires are steel belted, the edges of the belt will cut the plugs in half.

People on the Miata forum (the '06 and later Miata's have no spare) swear by Dynaplugs:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EXSER4/?tag=twowhetex-20

but I know one person who tried it on a motorcycle and said it still leaked. Of course he might have had a hole so big nothing would seal it; I don't know.

Somewhere, I don't remember where, I read some rave reviews for these:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00230DGOW/?tag=twowhetex-20

I have a set, but fortunately haven't had to use them.



You could try this:

http://www.webbikeworld.com/t2/cargol-turn-go/
 
Don't know where you live but Action Suzuki Kawasaki on I-30 in Mesquite will do a plug patch as long as the hole is somewhere in the middle part of the tread and not up on the side. They did one for me and I ran that tire another 6,000 miles with no problems.
 
If it's a rear tire, I recommend an internal patch and drive on.

If it's a front tire, sorry, for peace of mind those tires (IMHO) have to be pristine.

YMMV
 
When my Bandit was new I picked up a roofing nail. I was sweating having to buy a new tire after having just bought a new motorcycle and came to TWTex for recommendations and help.
Here is the link: I Got Nailed

I plugged the tire and put another 4,500 miles on the tire with nary a leak.
 
Thanks for the tips guys...I'll explore these options.

Hey buffalo, mine is right in the center...I live right on the edge of Irving/Coppell so that place isn't too terribly far....Do you remember the price of the fix ?


Thanks again everyone.:sun:
 
Just get one of those gummy string kits from wally world, and follow the instructions on the back. I've plugged 2 rears and a front with them, and I wore out all those tires.
 
+ 1 on the gummy strings kit. They work well. I have ridden many miles on tires with one of them inserted. I carry them on the bike along with a pump.
 
I removed the wheel from the bike and took just it over for them to repair. It ran $43. That included rebalancing. It will be more than that if you take the bike over and have them pull the wheel off. How much will depend on how long it takes to pull the wheel on your particular bike.
 
Much of that cost is their standard rate to demount and mount a tire, same as what they charge to put a new tire on and balance it. Only $5 of it is the cost of the plug patch. You have to demount the tire to do a plug patch.
 
In Corinth there's a guy named Elmer who runs Northside Cycle who'll fix it for ya so long as its not too near the edge of the tread.

I got him to put a plug+patch in my brand new Pilot Power this past summer for around $50 (standard charges for removing and re-installing the tire..if you can do this yourself it'd probably be around $5-10), I'm currently waiting on my new rear tire to arrive (should have arrived today ggrrrrr....) and my PP is near the nylons with no air leaks and a 1200-mile solo-trip through the Ozarks for spring break.
 
I was doing my weekly inflation check and found a roofing staple near the edge of my Michelin:eek: but no worries as I got not one bubble when I sprayed the soapy water on it. The plug for the carpet tack is holding just fine. I think I found another nail, looks like it may be a #4 finish nail but it is buried so deep into the carcass and it is not leaking(yet) .I well just keep the inflator and gummy worms handy. (I use the T handle tools as the small straight handles don't give you the force necessary to push through the puncture to make a gummy worm home.
 
Plug, air up, and ride on. I like the cat turd plugs myself. Probably 40k of the last 70k miles I've ridden were on plugged tires.
 
Plug, air up, and ride on. I like the cat turd plugs myself. Probably 40k of the last 70k miles I've ridden were on plugged tires.


Cat turd plugs ?:rofl:

I looked on Greg's thread and saw something about cat poop and then snot stringy or something:lol2:
They are really called cat turd ?
 
Plug, air up, and ride on. I like the cat turd plugs myself. Probably 40k of the last 70k miles I've ridden were on plugged tires.

Im curios of the tires your running? Since our selection is small. Especially if you can get 40k miles on a plugged tire. Im lucky to get 10k on any tire. But my Strom has a tire warranty I try to run over nails.
 
Im curios of the tires your running? Since our selection is small. Especially if you can get 40k miles on a plugged tire. Im lucky to get 10k on any tire. But my Strom has a tire warranty I try to run over nails.

I had four tires in a row get nails within the first 500 miles. All of them I rode till end of life with plugs in them. One started to leak around the 8k mark, but I just put a fresh plug in it and rode it till it was bald.
 
So far I've tried Tourances, Anakees, Road Attacks, and Trail Attacks. Three or four Tourances at first then I started to try new things. For the rear I think the Tourances might be the way to go in terms of mileage and grip. For the front either of the Conti's smoke the Tourance in terms of wear. I've never tried the new Tourance because of the lower mileage claims by most.
 
I have been using Tire Plugger mushroom plugs for yeeears now. I've never had one fail on me, having used them on the motorcycles and a car. However I've had a couple friends who had their 'shroom plugs leak air or the tire spit 'em out..... After watching these guys plug their tires, I concluded that they did not follow correctly the instructions to gently tug on the plugs once they were inserted..... they assumed that if a little tug is good, an hard tug must be better. I've put thousands of miles on a mushroom plugged rear tire, and tens of thousands of miles on a plugged car tire; either I've been lucky or inserting them correctly is the key.

Now..... all of that having been said:
Rather than plug a brand new tire that was taking me on a road trip with aggressive riders, while loaded up with luggage, over mountain passes with steep cliffs.... I chose to replace the tire with a new tire.

Sometimes ya just gotta listen to yer gut with regard to what is right and when it might be appropriate.

(In a perfect world where I didn't have to pay to have my wheel/tire removed, and I caught the tire before putting miles on it with the nail in place, a big 'shroom plug/patch from the inside would gain as much my confidence as an undamaged tire)
 
I got a small screw in my rear PR2. I got a plug kit from O'Reileys. It seems to be holding fine.
 
I never ever, ever plug a tire. I have personally seen them come out of a bike tire. When i patch a tire i will take the tire off the rim and patch it from the inside. No complaints yet.
 
I was headin to the Dragon last fall when I noticed a staple in my rear tire. When we stopped at a gas station in Highlands NC a fellow told me of a little tire / car care shop about a mile away. It was lunch time so I had to ride on the back of a buddies bike to get lunch while my tire was getting fixed. An hour and $30 later I was on the road to tame the Dragon. The guy at the shop said there was no way he would plug a motorcycle tire. Something about the heat build up and the force exerted on the tire in a turn could cause the plug to fail.
 
The guy at the shop said there was no way he would plug a motorcycle tire. Something about the heat build up and the force exerted on the tire in a turn could cause the plug to fail.
The guy at the shop was protecting his rear end, which in this litigious society is the only thing you can do.

Tire repair threads are like oil threads.... run, do, act, with what makes you comfortable. Although for argument's sake I don't see catastrophic failure occurring in the event of a plug failure --- the tire goes flat, at least at our level of riding expertise.
 
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