I got my first ever tubeless puncture due to a tiny shard of metal that stuck into my basically brand-new 2Bliss Turbo (after having zero punctures with GP5000 TLs for thousands of miles).
Adding fresh sealant seemed to fix it, but the other day I realized it still had a slow leak. Then it started leaking a bit as I tried to fill it up. And then it sealed itself again. After riding for an hour and a half I had lost about 10-15 PSI.
What is the best permanent solution in this situation? Should I try to apply some sort of patch to the inside? Or maybe a touch of superglue on the outside? Or should I just change my brand of sealant? I ran out of Stan’s, so I figure I could try Silca instead.
This seems odd for a cut you describe as very small. The fact that the tires are basically new makes me wonder if the cut is the only culprit. Perhaps the casing is not yet fully airtight (“tubeless” should hold air without sealant, “tubeless ready” only after sealant has coated the inside fully). It also may be the case that the sealant isn’t getting to the site of the cut, so riding the bike is needed to get the sealant to slosh and splash into the affected area.
Oh, and I’ve seen sealant labels that say to not Inter-mix brands. Maybe just marketing voodoo but who knows. Stick with what you have to eliminate a variable as you troubleshoot.
Take the tire off, dry it out, patch it from the inside with a typical vulcanized rubber tube patch, let that set for awhile and then put it all back together.
Plugs are good temp fixes, but eventually they get tweaked and leak a bit or the brass nipple from the dynaplug falls off and spends the next 1k miles bouncing around between the rim tape and tire.
It sealed fine until I got the flat. I didn’t even notice I had punctured until coming down a 700 meter (elevation) descent and realized my bike was bouncing like crazy when I tried to do a cadence drill.
Plus 1 for Dynaplug. I’ve had the same scenario on Continental GP5000s on two occasions. Dynaplug inserted and a couple of thousand more kilometres on the tire with no issue.
+1 for different sealant. I found stan’s to not withstand the higher pressures in a road bike tire. Small punctures would open again. Switched to orange seal and never had that problem again… I keep the rest of my Stan’s for the gravel tires which I run at much lower pressures…
Patch it from the inside with a tube patch. You might need to leave it for a while to dry (overnight), because the vulcanizing solution doesn’t work well on the tyre, but it’ll stick.
The problem with putting a dynaplug or similar in is that you then can’t put a tube in (if you ever need to), because the tip of the plug would puncture it.
I’ve had tube patches inside tyres for years, never had an issue.
Stan’s dart, pretty easy to use once you have gotten past its small learning curve… (some holes you need to make slightly bigger to get the dart in)
Very small and light and chemically binds to the tire rubber too
Another +1 for Dynaplug. I had a new Schwalbe Pro 1 puncture and it wouldn’t stay sealed with Stan’s. After a few top-off inflations and spinning & shaking the wheel to get to seal again, I plugged it with a Dynaplug. It stayed there until the tire wore out, and I never got another puncture (that I noticed), and the plug stayed sealed for the duration.
Since I ran out of Stan’s, I’m giving Silca a shot for the new tires. I’m about 1000 miles in, and no issues so far.
I tried patching it. I will check out how well it has held pressure today.
I would have thought the issue with Stan’s is that it dries out really quickly.
Most likely too late, but in case it helps in future - check there’s nothing in the hole still. I had a puncture that wouldn’t seal, it was very slowly going down so I kept putting a bit of air in and carrying on. Turned out the glass that caused the cut (tiny sliver) was still in the tyre and kept re-puncturing it. Removing that with the flat screwdriver on my multitool allowed it to seal and do many more Ks before the tyre was worn out with no issue.
I had considered that maybe there was a tiny piece of metal left in the hole, but concerning the hole was damn near invisible from either side, I figure that was not the issue. I didn’t want to chance enlarging the whole with a pointy object.
The patch seems to have completely fixed the issue.
Always Dynaplug, they just seem to work. My experience with the Stans darts hasn’t been great, last time I used I put a dart in and it didn’t seal. Then followed with Dynaplug (another riders) which sealed the hole. Since then I’ve moved across.
Depending on your weight and disposable income a lot of folks just get a new tire.
Weight: Basically if you require more than 50psi in your road tires (aka weigh more than 145lbs) then you will mostly have issues. Not always of course, but the limit in terms of PSI for road tubeless seems to hang right around 50psi. Once you go past that, typically you will notice that sealant starts coming out of the puncture regardless if you fixed it or not.
Plugs: The problem with most plugs these days for ROAD tires is that they are just too big. The only plugs I’ve found to be the right size and be the right size tool are the genuine innovations ones. The one that looks like a baby screw driver. All the rest are mostly manufactured for MTB tires with very large reamers and pokers. Like way too large. Also, someone mentioned above about dynaplug. Those stupid tips fall off all the time in customers tires and rattle around their wheels like crazy. I’ve seen where one of those had been rattled around so much that it was no longer a pointy tip, but it was damn near rounded to a bb
Technique: make sure when you plug or ream it you are not also pushing it in so far that you actually end up poking thru your tubeless tape. I have seen this a lot. That’s where peoples slow leak ends up coming from.
Patching: you can try with the vulcanize stuff, but I’ve had mixed luck.
Sealant Brand: I am lucky as I only weigh 140’ish so I never ride more than 48psi on my road setup. I have noticed as someone pointed out above that Orangeseal seems to do better with my road punctures than stans. My homebrew does pretty well also. Finishline and berrymans doesn’t work at all.
Time/Money/Risk: Depending on those items, if you are from the type that has more money/time, then just get a new tire for piece of mind. Give the one with the leak to your local bike mechanic or someone that rides with tubes so it’s not just wasted. I am not from this club, but lots of customers are.
P.S. the new stans darts seem to work better than the ones from a year ago. Not sure if they changed something, but they seem to work better.