JeffOYB

I thought sealant was good for preventing flats in inner tubes. But the various items in the LBS don't mention use in tubes! One shop guy said "We dont have any Slime. We used to have some tubes that came w Slime in them." I'm thinking that Slime is sealant and that sealant has the little squirmy glitter plug-holes thingies and it would all work fine in an inner tube.
Then there's all the recommendations for all the different volumes of sealant depending on tire size. I suppose it's because after it splashes all around and wets the inside of a tube/tire that a larger tire leaves less left over for plugging holes or for sealing the rim?I've only set up one wheel for tubeless so far. A mtb wheel w 2.25" tire. I think I put 2 oz into it. It's been fine for 2-3 yrs now. I just burped it the first time last week. It instantly resealed and I pumped it up to decent pressure to keep riding. Isn't all my sealant dry by now? I'm guessing it's sealed just coz the bead is fitting good to the rim. I don't recall it being a tight fit, but both tire and rim said 'tubeless ready.' I assume that since both units were used when i set it up that there were already a few yrs old.Anyway, I have a tubular CX tire that goes flat pretty quick and injected car tire type Slime into it. Didn't work. I then bought a little 2 oz bottle of Bontrager sealant and put about 1 oz in of that. I hear it sloshing around. For past couple days it loses half its air in a couple hours. I've been trying higher PSI to see if that helps. I don't get any steady stream of bubbles when i test it in our pool. I do get occasional bubbles though as I rotate the wheel underwater near the valve stem hole.

squirtdad

all over the place here.... road, mtb, tubie

IME slime does not work...it sucks it is messy and it sucks (the only exception is the auto version in auto tires for slow leaks as a temporary fix)

I am trying Orange seal in tubes on my road bike.......do not have definitive results yet, I got one puncture that was in and out like a big thumtack.... sealant just sprayed every wear... so it is not magic, but I am pretty sure it has stopped a small leaks avoiding a flat

I have orange seal in a set of road tubies, but don't have enough miles to say one way or the other on effectiveness.

just looking at posts on this subject it seems like sealant works pretty well for tubeless setups and I see a fair number of posts saying it works well for tubular tires, especially those with latex tubes

Orange seal says 2 ounces/30 ml for a 700c road tube/tire and I think 4 ounces/60 ml for Mountain tire.

is does dry out and should be re added at 3 to 6 months per instructions

JeffOYB

Well the sealant isn't working in my CX tire. I was hoping to not have to do surgery on it. Is there a wide variety of sealants? Like some with different sized pluggers in it? Are some sealants known to be better inside a tube? I assume this tubie has a latex tube since it's a Challenge. --JP

MattTheHat 

I can say from my experience in road tubeless tires, there is a difference in sealants. When I ran Stan's Race I would see many, many Stan's boogers on the outside of my tires. I had one puncture that Stan's just wouldn't seal...and it wasn't that big. I've been running Orange Seal for a couple of thousand miles now. I don't see anywhere near as many boogers on the outside of the tire, indicating to me that the Orange Seal is doing its job before leaking enough sealant to form a booger.

I have no idea how this translates into running inside a tube, if at all.

jeffreythree

I used to run regular tubes with sealant, first Sean's and then orange seal, as a preventative when my tires were a bit cut up from road debris but still half tread life. Sort of worked most of the time for small stuff. I tried some recently in a vittoria latex tube with a slow leak near the stem, and it dried up very fast(maybe a week?) making the tube a crumpled, stuck together mess.

redlude97

Its a crapshoot if sealant is going to work in a tube because unlike tubeless, the tube can move and isn't a part of the casing. So what happens is that the sealant can temporarily seal a hole in a tube but as you ride the tube tears away from tire and reopens and repeats this cycle over and over and you'll get a leak. If you're lucky the sealant will occasionally leak past the tube far enough to pool and seal the tube from both sides and bond it to the casing. For tubulars there is a slightly better chance but still not 100%. If you know where the hole is then hang the tire with hole pointed down so the sealant can pool above the hole and it can sometimes seal it. If hole is at the base of the valve its probably never going to stay sealed as there is too much movement there IME

Trevtassie

Slime works great in tubes for things like thorns. Bigger stuff, not so much. One of the problems is if it doesn't work, it makes it hard to patch tubes because it wets the outside with, well, Slime. The secret to getting patches to stick is to use Isopropyl Alcohol to wipe the tube clean around the puncture, after you've massaged the Slime away from the hole. The second secret is that a lot of eye glass cleaning sachets have about 70% isopropyl, as do the swabs used for pre-injection skin cleaning, so it's easy enough to carry a couple in your repair kit. Saves a lot of grief and swearing.

squirtdad

I would not make any guess as to how auto slime will work in a tubie Orange seal, tufo, an calfetex are what people post on using

my challenge tubies have butyl tubes.....fwiw