I’m interested in hearing from people who have used the Tufo sealant. A search of the archives provides a few posts on the stuff. The RBR forum seems to be in favor of the stuff. I know some people use it in tubulars other than Tufos. Any experiences/thoughts on this? If it works well in a tubular like the Conti Comp then that would really be the best of both worlds in my opinion. The major difference being that the conti has a tube and the Tufo is a tubeless design of sorts.
sweet
i can tell you right now that the tufo sealant is great for flat prevention. i use it in my tufos and i have had no problem. as a matter of fact i came home from a 50 mile group ride one day and found about 6 spots were the sealent had done its job. granted the roads i was riding on are notorious for their vast amounts of broken glass, but since i had the sealent i had no problem. i cant say for sure how it will perform in other tubulars, because the tufos have a air tight inner layer and not a tube that is sewn in. trust me you wont regret having the few extra grams of sealent in your tires.
As someone who just purchased and installed two Tufo’s for my race wheels, can you tell me how the sealant is installed? Can I do it after tires glued onto deep wheels where extenders are used? In other words the valve in inside my wheel’s dish and not very accessible. Thanks!
Mike
i would suggest that if you cant get to the valve, to take the tires off to put the sealent in the tire. this is because to put the sealent in you have to take out the valve core. the instructions on the tube of the stuff says that you can put it in the tire with the valve core still in, but i would only do that if you were miles away from home with no ride. this is because it will gunk up the core. plus the other downside to the sealant is that once it is in the tire you should think of the valve as one way only. if you have to take any air out of the tire make sure you have extra cores, because the sealent will come out through the valve. but the good thing about this whole mess, is that since your using tufos, you shouldnt have to wory as much about flats. for some reason the tufos i have had ,before finding out about the sealent, have been very resistant to flats. i know it sounds like im sucking up to tufo in a way but this is just my experience with their tires.
I switched to the TUFO’s several months ago after having a long series of flats using GP 3000’s. I used half a tube of sealant in each tire and haven’t had a flat since. The sealant is basically liquid latex and as soon as it hits air, it rubberizes. Not at all like “slime”. I am absolutely sold.
No news is good news when talking about flats. The stuff must work I ain’t bin stuck on the side of the road with the wheel off wondering if the CO2 is going to work. I like the TUFO stuff.
Dirtball
I just purchased and mounted a pir of Tufo S22 tubular clinchers. I purchased two 35ml tubes of Tufo sealant as well, but didn’t venture to use it as I thought it wouldn’t be necessary until I flatted. But you’re convinced that it’s a good idea to go ahead and use the sealant as a preventative. Any problems with high speed wheel balance issues with that liquid latex in there? And what about added weight issues for race day tires?
I realize it’s not a car going 65mpg down the freeway, but I used some tire puncture sealant in a car tire once and it threw the balance off so much it started to dribble like a basketball. That would be scary on a bike at 45mph downhill.
The Tufo sealant is, essentially, liquid latex. If you do a search for Tubeless tires on MTBR.com you will find a bunch of info on the do-it yourself tubeless systems for mountain bikes. The Tufo goop works along the same lines.
The Tufo sealant may or may not work in a conventional tire. It definitely will not work as well as it does in a tubeless tire. It’s probably less likely to work well in a tire with a butyl tube than in one with a latex tube. On the other hand, the solvent in the goop may eat a latex tube (rumour has it this is in fact the case, but I have no first hand experience.) If you throw out your tubies when they flat, you may as well try it in them (although I probably wouldn’t do it with expensive latex tubed tires…) If you repair them, or have someone repair them for you, do not use the sealant. It will make a giant mess out of the inside of your tire when you flat.
MH
The Tufo sealant should work as Tufo’s use a butyl inner tube, not a latex tube. This is from http://www.tufo.com/anglicka/produkce/produkce.htm “The inside airtight layer is made of butyl rubber featuring very low air permeability.”
This thread leads me to ask these questions. If Tufo sealant is just Liquid Latex, wouldn’t it just be cheaper to buy LL in bulk from the local costume shop? And how come Tufo doesn’t market their sealant for users of standard clinchers. Seems this would be a good market. Just look at the Slime business, and that stuff doesn’t even work. Yeah, I know, they don’t so they can sell the tires.
Tufo tires do not have an inner tube - that’s why they call them tubeless. They are a round carcass, with an impermeable layer on the inside (butylized fabric,) that is vulcanized closed. No tube. That’s why the sealant works in them. If you get a hole in the tire, the sealant flows to and through the hole, and dries on contact with the air, filling the air gap/leak. The positive pressure environment of the tire forces the goop out to the hole, like a decompression scene in a bad airplane movie. It flows to the hole in the tire, not in the tube - get it?
If you have a tube in a tire, the goop will flow to the hole in the tube, which is in the tire, not in contact with the air. It may or may not fill this hole, but it will definitely flow out of this hole. Once out, it is no longer in a positive pressure environment, but it is in a low air environment (the tire casing in a traditional tire is air-permeable, providing mechanical support for the air bladder/tube inside it, but not functioning to retain that air.) This being the case, the sealant may or may not flow to the hole in the tire, which it may or may not fill (which doesn’t really matter since the tire is air permeable.)
Having used both Tufo sealant and liquid latex, my experience suggests that while Tufo sealant is mostly latex, it uses a solvent that evaporates more quickly than off the shelf liquid latex.
MH
MH