[Richard230]

FortNine tests three motorcycle tire sealant/balancing goos in this recent video production:

Unfortunately, he didn't try them out on tube-type wheels, just tubeless tires. So it might not be all that helpful to F800GS owners that have tube-type wheels, as I have my doubts how well that stuff works to seal a tube puncture. But the balancing feature of the goo might be useful.

 

[N4HHE]

Experience with Slime says it will slowly leak until all the Slime is gone. The F9 test was too short. What was the tire pressure the next morning? The next week?

There are those who swear by bead balancing and those who say it didn’t work for them. Beads and goo will disperse to balance a wheel if it shakes out of round. The F9 “test” only measured whether the goo stayed in place long enough to remove the wheel to check on a static balancer.

The problem with beads and goo is that any time the wheel gets knocked out of perfectly round spinning the goo/beads can only assume the wheel is out of balance and the goo/beads needs to move. As occurs with every crack in the road.

You can not spin balance a wheel with beads or goo. The spin balancer holds the wheel rigidly concentric so the goo doesn’t know to move.

I'll stay with stick-on weights.

 

[Daboo]

Oh My Gosh! Are we seeing the passing of the baton to some unknown?

The test was too short by far. I have a fair amount of experience with Slime. I also have a bottle of Ride-On and my riding partner, James, uses Ride-On in his tires. Both products will get tacky as time goes on. When you first put either product in, they are runny, which is understandable. You need to get them inside the tire. If you take the tire off in a couple weeks, you'll find they make a mess. As you get to the end of life for your tire, you'll find they have spread out in the tread area and there's very little to clean or even notice. On my first use of Slime, the mechanic exclaimed "WHAT A MESS!!!" when he took the tire off the rim...but there wasn't any.

As for cleanup...if it is runny like that, the quick and easy way to do it, is simply to step outside and rinse the Slime/Ride-On off with a garden hose. It's water soluble and biodegradable, so you're not polluting anything.

Balancing is a topic for a lot of debate. I think they do help balancing, like balance beads. Detractors will say it redistributes when you hit a bump. Maybe, but how fast does that happen? And how much redistributes? Is it a 30 second redistribution? Or 0.03 seconds? I think it is more towards the fraction of a second and beyond your capability to notice. Whether on a spin balancer or static balancer like they showed in the video, it doesn't work to check balance with any of these products inside the tire. Maybe after 10,000 miles when the substance has turned tacky and stays spread out. But when you've just put it in, the sealant is so liquid, it'll move and the spin or static balancer will get a false reading.

I've had Slime work perfectly on one tire that picked up 4 separate punctures over the 14,000 mile life of the tire. On one occasion, the nail was pretty good sized and air was leaking out quickly when I had the puncture at the 3 o'clock position. I rotated the tire 90 degrees to put the puncture at the bottom of the tire...and the hole sealed up in seconds.

I also had Slime fail miserably once. I had a large roofing nail go in...and right back out...at 60 mph. The tire rotation speed was so fast that the Slime never had a chance and it simply sprayed out inside the wheel well area. That time, the Slime was in the tire already. If I'd had a way to get more Slime to put back in and then rotated the tire to put the puncture at the 6 o'clock position (bottom), I have no doubt it would've sealed just fine.

I hope if this new guy is picking up the baton, that he actually puts some effort into future reviews.

Chris

 

[Richard230]

I once used Slime when I got a air leak on my Zero's rear tire a few years ago. After I arrived home I noticed that the Slime was leaking out of the nail hole. So I plugged the tire. Bad decision. After about 5 miles the plug came out of the tread when the Slime acted like a lubricant and the tire went flat again. What I had to do was to thoroughly clean the hole with alcohol, roughen it up again and then install a new plug. That worked well until the tire wore out. Upon removing the tire, I there was not much of a mess and it was easy to clean the wheel rim with a wet rag. After that experience, I decided to no longer carry a bottle of Slime on my bikes and just stick to a compact plugger system.

 

[N4HHE]

I used to run TuBliss in my Husaberg. Most of the time I could not get a perfect seal with the tire so Slime was essential. Every week I'd wipe a puddle of Slime off the garage floor under each wheel. Periodically I'd guess how much more to add to make up for the leakage.

One day at perhaps the most perfect enduro ever, was my first after carpel tunnel release surgery, I retired after the first section. Was too much too soon for my hand.

Returned from the truck. Loaded up. Changed into normal clothes. Ate. Enjoyed sitting under the trees wishing I was on the trails. Then people started finishing the race and giving me condolences for my flat tire. "What?!" Looked in the back of the truck and sure enough the rear was flat as a pancake. It had run out of Slime. It wasn't flat when I loaded the bike in the truck.

That day I was the only rider to DNF.

Replaced the TuBliss with Bridgestone UHD tubes. Over 12 years ago. Still using those tubes.

 

[Thumpin]

I watched that video.....and made a comment on YouTube. The test treated the products as if the balancing is "static" and the tire/wheel stays balanced after the ride. I believe that the liquid sealant products and beads are a "dynamic" balancing product and must be rotating for the product to balance the wheel. They should have tested the balancing ability while the bike was moving. (The balance weights on my rear tire came off somehow, and it was really obvious what an unbalanced wheel/tire feels like.

And I am also a fan of not using these tire sealants....and I use weights and carry a patch kit.

 

[N4HHE]

I watched that video.....and made a comment on YouTube. The test treated the products as if the balancing is "static" and the tire/wheel stays balanced after the ride. I believe that the liquid sealant products and beads are a "dynamic" balancing product and must be rotating for the product to balance the wheel. They should have tested the balancing ability while the bike was moving. (The balance weights on my rear tire came off somehow, and it was really obvious what an unbalanced wheel/tire feels like.

And I am also a fan of not using these tire sealants....and I use weights and carry a patch kit.

Yes, they demonstrated most goo lost its balance quickly when parked. So one starts every ride with an unbalanced wheel. Their approved balance goo only lasted long enough to take the wheel off to check. Betcha it was out the next week.

Have theorized goo will unbalance when it hits a crack or pothole. Others over the years have agreed with me stating they thought their motorcycle rode harsher with goo/bead balance but didn't understand how that could be.

Sealant/goo is a good idea to have in one's toolbox in a pinch but it is not a satisfactory prophylactic.

 

[Daboo]

Yes, they demonstrated most goo lost its balance quickly when parked. So one starts every ride with an unbalanced wheel. Their approved balance goo only lasted long enough to take the wheel off to check. Betcha it was out the next week.

Many people point that out, but does it matter? Let's say I have sealant/goo in my tire. I leave my garage and it is all down in one spot. If it is still liquid, it'll start to get distributed as I back out of the driveway. As I head up the hill to the main street, it is spread out all over the inside.

It's still not "balanced" though at that point. I take off down the road, and get up to the 30 mph speed limit. At some point and speed, it is balanced as the centrifugal force spreads it out.

You can ride a totally out of balance tire and at a low enough speed, you'll never notice it. It's only when you get up to (guessing at this) 40 mph or more that the tire being out of balance will show up.

As for hitting bumps...how many minutes do you think it takes to react and rebalance? Or seconds? Or mili-seconds? From personal experience, I can tell you that I couldn't feel it with either Slime or balance beads.

What I've noticed is that as the sealant/goo ages, it becomes more viscous. I suppose that could be a problem if you put the sealant/goo into the tire and then didn't ride it much in the future. But if you're riding several times a week, it'll spread out as it becomes less watery. When I had a rear tire changed and had Slime in it for a year, I couldn't see it on the inside of the tire tread area. It had turned black and blended right in. My friend, James up in Arlington, uses Ride-On. At his last tire change, it was still visible and close to the original color, but the Ride-On had become tacky and wasn't moving. So by then, whether he hit a bump or parked his bike for a couple days, it didn't move but stayed where it was.

Chris

 

[N4HHE]

Its just that I have known several who swear balance beads and goo is the cat's meow. And others who have tried and had to pay to have the stuff cleaned out because it made things worse.

I remember doing the math on self-balancing goo in engineering school. Centripetal (forces accelerate toward the center to make the goo orbit around the axle) isn't really what distributes the goo. The wheel has to shake out of concentric for the correction to occur. Once balance is found the wheel will spin concentric yet extra goo will remain somewhere. This is why you can not spin balance a goo/bead wheel, the spin balancer holds the wheel concentric, no bounce, no redistribution. And why I say any bump in the road will restart the rebalance distribution leaving the wheel out of balance for a spell.

At 10¢ per 1/4 oz weight the cost and non-deterministic properties of balance goo is too much for me.

 

[Daboo]

"for a spell"...true. All I'm saying is that "for a spell", is so miniscule that you can't notice it.

FWIW, I don't have any weights on the Bridgestone T32s I'm using now. All I did was to align the dot on the tire sidewall with the valve stem. I've had the bike up to probably 80+ with no vibration...of course on a closed course and ridden by a professional rider.

Chris

 

[Richard230]

I wonder how that balancing goo does when you have a block of tire pressure sensor sitting in the wheelwell of BMW motorcycles that come with tire pressure warning devices, like is used in the wheels of my RS?

 

[Daboo]

I wonder how that balancing goo does when you have a block of tire pressure sensor sitting in the wheelwell of BMW motorcycles that come with tire pressure warning devices, like is used in the wheels of my RS?

Probably as well as it does in most new cars. My wife's 2016 Prius didn't come with a spare tire. It has Toyota's proprietary goo...and TPMS.

The goo wouldn't care whether the sensor was there or not. It would treat that spot the same as if it was a blob of rubber in that location.

 

[N4HHE]

I wonder how that balancing goo does when you have a block of tire pressure sensor sitting in the wheelwell of BMW motorcycles that come with tire pressure warning devices, like is used in the wheels of my RS?

Most sensors say "do not use beads or goo". Tesla once sold an emergency flat kit with goo sealant. Instructions stated replace TPMS with tire after use.

Many beads and goo claim to be safe to use with TPMS. The only saving grace is how the TPMS sensor is mounted on the rim and unless the beads/goo is splashing around it won't be in regular contact with the rim. But if it is splashing around then it is out of balance "for a spell."

 

[N4HHE]

The goo wouldn't care whether the sensor was there or not. It would treat that spot the same as if it was a blob of rubber in that location.

But there is a pinhole which would affect pressure readings if goo was sticking to the sensor's pressure surface. Tire spinning, mass of goo, pulling on surface of the sensor? Or filling the space between sensor and the assembly housing

 

[N4HHE]

"for a spell"...true. All I'm saying is that "for a spell", is so miniscule that you can't notice it.

Imbalanace is another hit on the suspension no matter .

FWIW, I don't have any weights on the Bridgestone T32s I'm using now. All I did was to align the dot on the tire sidewall with the valve stem. I've had the bike up to probably 80+ with no vibration...of course on a closed course and ridden by a professional rider.

As a general rule motorcycles are very insensitive to tire balance.

My FJR came new from the factory with no weights on the front wheel. I have mounted many tires that only required (1) or (2) 1/4 oz weights. A few that took none. And one P.O.S. no-name eBay Chinese tire that took 19.

Wish I had taken a saw to that tire. Mounted on my friend's Ninja. He locked it on slow wet turn at the top of a hill above a tight switchback. Ran off the road. Rode down the hill on grass. Hit drainage ditch at the switchback, totaled the bike at 15 MPH, bounced 3 times, broken leg, arm, ribs. Got COVID in the hospital. Never made it home. Look at the weights on the rear wheel.