
Originally Posted by
el Pollo
Ahh. An area of expertise for me...
Slime is basically a consumer's version of OTR Sealer. And most of the time the reason it doesn't seal correctly is because some people don't apply it correctly. The best way I have done is to unbolt the wheel and tire assembly from the trike/quad/wheel barrow/whatever, and apply the Slime. Air up the tire to roughly 15 pounds and bounce the tire while spinning it for a few minutes. That way it will coat evenly and not cause a wobble once it's back on the machine.
And yes, it is a temporary fix. The best fix if the injury is up to about 1/4" in diameter is to use the nylon string plugs. The innerliner in the "quad tires" are too thin to accept a patch. And "fix-a-flat" is utterly useless. It has the consistency of milk and does squat to seal a leak even temporaraly.
When I used slime, I put a block under my trike to suspend the front wheel then put the slime in and aired the tire up to between 10-15 psi (higher then normal just til the slime was distributed) and rotated the wheel continuously. All that happened was the slime kept oozing out of the pinholes in the tire. Yes I used the slime for tubless tires. I thought maybe I had too much pressure in the tire so I kept lowering it until I got down to operating pressure...still no luck. I'll never use it again, ever, and I always deter others from using it. I've used Fix-a-flat a number of times with excellent success repeatedly. I seems to come out of the hole and quickly rubberize, and I've used it as a permanent solution with no problem, in fact one of the tires I used it on has been on my dirtbike for years now and I ride that harder then the trikes.
Trikes
1984 Honda 200x, 1984 Honda 200m
Bikes
1995 Honda CR125R, 1985 Honda XL100 (gone), 1982 Kawisaki KZ550 LTD,
2001 Yamaha TT-R 125L, 1983 Honda XL185S (current project), 2001 Suzuki SV650S