patb86•21d ago

Tried a tubeless tire setup on my old rim wheels and got sealant everywhere

I was running tubes on a 2010 era mountain bike and figured I’d give tubeless a shot with some tape and a kit. Used Stan’s sealant, pumped up the tire, and it held air for like 10 minutes. Then I heard this hissing sound and suddenly there’s orange goo shooting out the sidewall. Turns out my rim tape job had a gap near the spoke holes. After cleaning up the mess, I did the tape again with two layers and made sure it was tight. Has anyone else had sealant failures from old rims not designed for tubeless?

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly_miller8021d ago

My 2014 Norco had the exact same issue with Stan's sealant turning into a sticky horror show. I used a whole roll of tape from a cheap Amazon kit and still had goo dripping down my garage wall after a ride. Turns out the rim wasn't smooth inside, and the tape kept lifting around the spoke bed. I ended up going back to tubes for a few weeks out of frustration. Finally caved and bought a cheap set of tubeless rims from a local shop, and it's been smooth sailing since. That first mess taught me that old rims just aren't built for this stuff, no matter how much tape you use.

colesanchez21d ago

and that's the thing nobody tells you about tubeless. The tape job is only half the battle. If the rim bed isn't perfectly smooth or the spoke holes aren't recessed, you're just fighting physics. I had a pair of old Mavic rims that drove me nuts for months until I realized the tape was peeling because the inner wall had these tiny casting ridges. I ended up using a file to smooth them out and then three layers of tape. It worked okay, but it wasn't until I picked up a set of Stan's rims that I stopped having to mess with it every few weeks. Sometimes you just gotta accept that old rims were made for tubes and nothing else.