Tubes! A bit of a rant

[Mike in NRN IN]

When I replaced my tires and tubes, I ran into the same problem - I would drive the car and within a couple days one or more tires would be flat.

I investigated the tubes when I removed them and found the punctures were ALWAYS on the inside diameter of the tube - between the tire beads. The recommendation was to use a pneumatic grinder and dress the tire beads to remove any sharp edges - my first tire I used a hand rasp and that's time consuming.

The other thing that seemed to help during the installation was talcum powder - unscented. Put a liberal amount in the tire and the tube slides around more easily.

The included diagram shows the potential for pinch punctures.

[Mike V. Florida]

Originally Posted by P.S.

Some argue that the lack of oxygen means that tire pressure will stay more constant due to the tendency of oxygen to migrate through the rubber tires. That's not scientifically sound. Just another paranoid rumor started on an internet forum by some "expert". Anyone who has passed chemistry 101 can explain why that's not really correct. The rubber being semi porous would be the major concern.

I read that all the time at service stations. Assuming they are right if the oxygen were to migrate out of the tire that would mean the percent of nitrogen in the tire would go up. As you refill the tire, the O2 would migrate out, the % of nitrogen increases and when repeated enough times there will be little or no O2 left in the tire.

[Mike V. Florida]

This is now quite long, in summary up to this point, is it the concusses that the best tubes are those from Firestonetubes.com? If so what are the part numbers?

[Tom Wesenberg]

In the 50's and early 60's many stores had tube testers. Maybe we should bring them back. LOL

Hey........give me a break, it's late night and that's the best I can do.

[Mike V. Florida]

Originally Posted by Tom Wesenberg

In the 50's and early 60's many stores had tube testers. Maybe we should bring them back. LOL

Hey........give me a break, it's late night and that's the best I can do.

It is late, I had to read it a couple of times to get the joke

[MikeK]

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Originally Posted by Tom Wesenberg

In the 50's and early 60's many stores had tube testers. Maybe we should bring them back. LOL

Hey........give me a break, it's late night and that's the best I can do.

Still looking for good matched gain pairs of USA made 12AX7's & 50C5's.

[P.S.]

I have plenty of N.O.S. 12AX7's and a boxload of 50C5's. I can understand matched 12AX7's for a preamp or whatever, but matched 50C5's?? Why?

[MikeK]

Originally Posted by P.S.

I have plenty of N.O.S. 12AX7's and a boxload of 50C5's. I can understand matched 12AX7's for a preamp or whatever, but matched 50C5's?? Why?

Wow, we're really off-topic here! My fault, too.

Nothing to do with auto tire tubes, but if you must know I have a very old neon strobe chromatic tuner for pipe organs. The 50C5's, (pentodes normally used as audio amps) are in a comparator circuit and drive two neon strobe tube modulators behind a synchronous rotating prism. If the gain curves do not match perfectly, when I switch octave ranges (a capacitive frequency multiplier array) the 'zero' established with an A440 fork does not translate accurately. Last time it took a bucket full of 50C5's to find a dead-nuts-on pair. OK??

I made the initial comment as a humorous follow-up to Tom's reference of "tube testers" in stores. They were mostly junk simple emission testers, no mutual conductance testers that you could match tubes with in the drug stores.

[Rock Hornbuckle]

Originally Posted by zzlegend

Are the tubes white or black.? Sorry ,,,,,,I just had to ask.

Are they fat or skinny like my girlfriends?

[Tiny]

You guys are gonna kill my thread now? New tube has made it two days so far. Went to a local everything car show yesterday. Everyone loved the coupe! It's funny though loads of people ask me if I inherited it. I guess I'm too young to have a model A. Lol I'm 40 I just tell them I didn't inherit this car just the model A disease

[Rock Hornbuckle]

Originally Posted by Tiny

You guys are gonna kill my thread now? New tube has made it two days so far. Went to a local everything car show yesterday. Everyone loved the coupe! It's funny though loads of people ask me if I inherited it. I guess I'm too young to have a model A. Lol I'm 40 I just tell them I didn't inherit this car just the model A disease

I inherited the disease from my Dad, and now my 38 year old son and 14 year old grandson have caught it. It's nice to know that my Dad's A's will stay in the family.

[Mike V. Florida]

So do we have a bottom line on where to get good Model A tubes?

[Keith True]

My tubes that went bad were bought in 09.I brought them home,put a breath of air in them,just enough to make them round,and hung them up.A few months later I went to mount them and found all were split on the lines,and looked rotted in the ribbed and textured part.The vendor I got them from brings a load of tires and tubes home from Hershey every year,we get a good price by pre-buying from him.I'm not sure what tire seller he buys from there,but it is one of the high volume dealers.The tubes went from Hershey to his trailer,then home to Maine,and to me in a couple of days.I don't know who made them but they were marked USA in blue lettering on the tubes.The lettering on the wrappers was in red,just stating the size.It wasn't like they were sitting on a shelf for years,no problems in the folds,just in the seams and the textured part.

[eagle]

I got tubes from Coker and they seem to be good quality. Have been on 1.5 years now and no issues. I have some T tubes I bought for my T before I sold it, they aren't nearly as thick of rubber as the A tubes from Coker. The T tubes came from Macs. Didn't have any trouble with the T tubes either though so >>>?