Tubeless troubleshooting
 

The tape should have nothing to do with the seal between tire and rim, right? Unless you are using tape that's way too wide: and the tape is in the area where the tire seals against the rim. If so, remove wide tape and get narrower tape.

Next, did you use fairly new sealant? Did you shake it extensively? Did you check on the bottom of the bottle to make sure that the latex rubber particles haven't all settled and congealed? If you have a big chunk of rubber on the bottom of your sealant bottle, the magic seal has escaped and is waving bye-bye:
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...61e3e3950a.jpg

If this is the case, you are putting soap-water into the tire to seal it. The leak won't seal - you must have fresh, well-shaken, unsettled sealant. If you aren't sure, for three bucks or so you can buy a small, new tube of Stan's or Bontrager. Try with that (again, well shaken - and test for settling).

If that's all ok, can you say if the leak is in the same place every time? If so, check the rim for gouges, and the tire for kinks in the bead or other irregularities.

One thing for sure: "micro leaks" are what sealant is made to stop. In fact, one of my big gripes about tubeless is that the sealant can congeal on the stem. You end up with a wheel that you can't inflate OR deflate. So if your micro-leak is not sealing I'm suspecting bad sealant.

Finish Line sealant is not a latex sealant, so that fluid seepage is what I would expect. They use fibers to plug holes and those fibers allow the carrier fluid to seep through them. Not a very good sealant, in my opinion. I would switch to a latex based sealant. I like Orange Seal original formula.

^^Ya. Looks like weeping from the sidewall of the tires.
Conti tires do that too.
I am using Finishline and it is working for me on Vittoria tires... no sidewall or bead weeping. And it worked on Kenda tubeless tires.
I use different technic so as not to waste the sealant.
I mount the tires on the rims.... and before pumping air I wipe the bead and rim with a rag with original windex with ammonia in it.
Pump up the tires and let sit for a couple days and make sure holds air. Then remove valve and add the sealant and add air again.
I don't count on the sealant to seal the bead. Just flat protection.
Finishline's claim that this sealant is for the life of the tire..... this is not true. They have retracted this claim, as I have experienced this sealant completely drying out after 9months on one of my wheels. It did seal goatheads and small punctures. No problem otherwise.

Edited: Taken from WTB website about Riddler with this sidewall:
" There was a hole in the sidewall of one of my tyres and it was clearly a manufacturing defect. I've since talked with two other people who had the same issue. The sidewalls were slowly leaking sealant and air in a few spots, and the tyres wouldn't hold pressure for more than two days. Punctures may be a problem, in the sense that the centre tread, being densely packed and low-profile, doesn't allow you to use repair knots.
The worst thing about this tyre is it's durability - after about 1200 km, the rear tyre was completely worn and would no longer seal punctures. For some people, that may be enough, for me, it's typically little bit more than a month of riding.

In a nutshell, this tyre is a great performer with poor reliability. Unless you really want to try out the volume, I would recommend going for Resolute instead, as it has better handling off-road, is faster on pavement and lasts longer. ""GREAT TIRE....BUT...

great tire,fast rolling,insane off road traction...transitions from pavement to dirt beautifully,awesome on the trails too...
its just too bad the sidewalls started seeping sealant after the first trip through deep gravel,and 300 miles has done a good job of erasing a good bit of the center tread..."

+1

Change to Orange Seal.

There are reports of Finish Line weeping through sidewalls.

Gravel Cycling Forum | Riding Gravel

Upgade to Orange Seal and be done with it.


-Tim-

Finish Line's greatest strength and weakness are one and the same: not being latex. The consensus at the LBS is that is is really suitable only for MTBs-- large quantities of sealant run at low pressures. One of the techs tried it in road tires, and it was gone on the first puncture. I am currently 100% about the Orange Seal, it works better than any sealant I've tried, and as a bonus dries out the slowest in SoCal heat. Would love to give Muc Off a try, but whoo boy is it expensive (like $2.50 an ounce.)

So this looks weird to me. My assumption (based upon dated notions, I'm sure) is that a tire should be able to hold some air for a bit, without sealant. At least well enough to seat the bead. The place where the OP's tire sidewalls go into the rim seems to be fabric, without adequate rubber to form much of a seal. The OP is to be congratulated in getting some seal, but I can't see how this tire works with the "fiber sealant". Perhaps a latex sealant where the rubber micelles coalesce and form the seal part of the rim are what is called for? Does the tire mfr have a recommendation (OP: I'd check in with them and give them the link to your post. I suspect you'll get a very fast response).

Just as a question, what is the percent sealant (fiber or latex micelles) in each sealant? Is Finish Line as clear as the stuff seeping out of the tire?

If liquid is seeping through the membrane, then gas can seep through it. So I have to agree: this seems like a very poor sealant for the application. The big pores and grooves of the fabric where the tire seats in the rim needs more large-pore sealing capacity than is furnished by the Finish Line non-latex fiber-based sealant.

Sometimes an extra layer of tape is helpful when the diameters of the rim and tire bead are a little too loose for an optimal seal, but I think the sealant/riding discussion is probably more on track here. :thumb:

Thanks, Scott. I have limited (all road tire) experience with tubeless. Just yesterday I pulled my front tire off my main bike, cleaned all the dried sealant boogers off the edges and from the inside of the tire, and resealed the thing. I had to clean off the inside of the stem, as it had sealant clogging it up.

My comment about tape was from the Park tools site IIRC. So the paradigm I'm hearing is:
1) Never use tape that gets up into the place where the tire seals, unless
2) The tire won't seal without it.

To the OP: It sounds like you have a couple options:
1) Return the tires as defective, and get replacements
2) Ditto, but get different tires
3) Try a latex-based sealant with these tires.

Given that sidewall leaks seem to be a "feature" of these tires, if the leak is truly through the sidewall, I'd get replacement tires.

If you dearly love these things, I'd check with the mfr as to their recommendations for sealant. Please share what you learn, if you do.

This! It's my assumption too that sealent is to stop leaks from punctures not to mount tubeless tires properly. If you have leaks in a tubeless setup without sealant my option is you have an improper tire rim combo or poor installation. Does an auto mechanic need sealant to mount your tubeless auto tires? I run ENVE 4,5 with Pro Ones. After mounting without sealent and inflating I put the tire in water. Leak through spoke holes? Bad tape job.Redo. Leaks around stem? Reinstall. I've gotten to the point now the tires show NO leaks anywhere without sealant. I leave overnight and double check. Still good? Great NOW I deflate and add sealant. Just my 2 cents but I would go back to tubes in a NY second if my tubeless setup needed sealent to stay inflated.

Just to add plus ++++ for orange sealent. The one puncture (nasty sidewall cut) I did have last year sealed nicely to 40 psi which was enough for men to limp home (10 miles).

I would try the Orange seal as well, that's the only thing I use in tubeless set ups. Also, on the side walls weeping - that's very normal on tires until the sealant plugs up the pores in the sidewalls. The advice I got from an Orange Seal rep on how to accelerate sealing on new WTB Nanos was to lower the air pressure to 25lbs and ride in tight figure 8s for about 5 minutes to work it in to the sidewalls and that has been very effective for me. Might try that first then if it doesn't work change the sealant as others said

Ah, the world needs more happy bunnies. Glad to know it, and congrats on getting the nice wheels set up to work well.

I found that experience matters a lot. So I cleaned out the front wheel (the stem had sealed up - couldn't inflate the thing). Spilled sealant from the first rim all over, took 45 minutes. But I was able to strip old sealant from the bead, and from the stem, and reseated the tire and it's holding nicely.

The rear wheel (same problem, same treatment) took about 20 minutes.

I realize that I'm missing the water tub that we had in the shop I worked in as a kid. I need to do a bubble check. Soapy water also can work.
I found that a sponge with a Scotch-Brite surface (this sponge was safe for non-stick, which may have been beneficial or unnecessarily mild, not sure) cleaned the beads with some elbow grease.

Also found that the large bottle of Bontrager Sealant is unwieldy and not very well thought out from a customer point of view. The measuring cup doesn't have gradations on it. I think its a straight 50ml, but 700c tubeless is supposed to use 25-30ml. Had to mark "25ml" and a witness line with a Sharpie. No help on the label*. There are solids in the Bontrager stuff that don't stay suspended very well. You have to be careful to 1) shake the bottle before measuring and 2) pour the measured stuff into the tube very quickly, else you get solids left in the measuring cup. The little tubing thing that the include is pretty useless. Hooked to the tire and bottle, you can't measure the amount. I took off the poor spout of the bottle and used it as a funnel with the measuring cup. For 25 bucks I expected better. But I also had a big bottle of Stan's, and that ended up with a big chunk of rubber in the bottom of the bottle. Pays your money, takes your chances, I guess.

*Bontrager does seem to lack a bit in the instructions and documentation department.

I only trust orange seal. And I put glitter in mine too. It will clog heavier holes better than the sealant particles alone.

Given the nature of latex, I would say yes, especially between Stan's and Orange Seal.

I didn't make a big fuss over my switch from Finish Line to Orange Seal, and it worked perfectly.

Good question @jimincalif. I'm wondering the same thing myself.

Clean out the Finish Line sealant and use Orange Seal. Then come back and let us know what happens.