Thread: Tubeless tyres on Tubed rim?

Hi Spudboy.
Couple of ideas others may be able to help with.
Landy "tubed rims" ie series had a much larger valve hole compared to normal rims,check to see if this is the difference in your rims,larger tubeless valves should be available(truck size).
Tubeless tyres can have tubes,but the ribs inside the tyre will chaff on the tube and cause the tube to weld to the tyre,one fix is put plenty of talc powder in the tyre,tube type tyres are smooth inside.
Tubes are a pain if you get sand in the tyre whilst "airing down",the sand wears holes in the tube.
Andrew

The bead profile on the rim and the rim construction determines if you need tubes or not. Early Landy rims had the centre disc rivetted to the rim, and while solid, were not air tight. Later ones were welded, which is airtight, but....
The rim profile (which will be stamped on the rim) will determine if the bead will form an airtight seal. Tubeless rims will have a safety bead code of 16x5.50J or JJ (or 16x6.50J or JJ), while a tubed rim will be 16x5.50G, H or T (or 16x6.50G or H),
If you have a tubed rim with a large valve stem hole, spacer bushes are used when fitting to allow use of modern small stem tubes.

Firstly, XZL's can be run with a tube. If you check the sidewall, it will state this. This is how they come from the factory on 130's.
130 HD (*Wolf) rims come in either tubed or tubeless versions. As has been stated, the tubeless version has a safety bead on the rim, otherwise they are identical.
My Nov '98 build 130 came with the tubed type, and I have two spares, one of which is a tubeless type. The valve hole is the same size on both. The bead area is very wide on the tube type rim, and, although I'm sure someone will scream death and destruction, I've been running them tubeless for well over three years. This was advised by two seperate tyre services after I started welding tubes to tyres and none of the tyre fitters since has ever questoined this. I've had a massive deflation at high speed when running with tubes and the tyre rolled off the rim anyway, (when there is no air in the tube, it won't hold the tyre on the bead anyway) so I can't see any problem with running them tubeless.

Excellent info.

My rims are not rivitted (they are from a 2001 130), and the valve hole looks like a normal sized tubeless hole.

303Gunner: The codes on the rims don't seem to match up with any of the ones you listed. They are 6 1/2 J x 16 x 20.6 and ANR5593.

Rick130: Perhaps I should just put on tubeless XZLs and see how they go. You don't seem to have had any problems. Has this been heavy off-road use or sealed roads only? We'll see what the tyre fitting place says (I go to Bob Jane's).

Aside from my rim issues, is the main benefit of a tubed tyre the ability to fix it youself whilst out bush?

I had several punctures in my tubeless Disco tyres up in Cape York, and I fixed these with "plugs" (sort of sticky rope stuff), but don't think they are a long term solution as I had to get them re-done properly when I got back to civilisation.

Main difference is the tyre retention humps on both sides of the rim to retain the bead of a tubeless tyre should it go down. I would think that it would be much easier to break a bead seal on a non JJ rim with the tubeless tyres down for sand.

It is illegal to fit tubeless tires on tube non JJ rims so you may find some fitters will refuse.

Re repairs. I have had plugs in tubeless tyres for their entire tread life with no problems. I took my wife's car to the local tyre place to have the mushroom fitted and they said don't worry about it.
Anyway you could carry a spare tube and put it in in the unlikely event you had a tubeless tyre damaged so badly that it couldn't be fixed with a plug.
I reckon tubeless rule as they hardly ever "blow out" ie they go down slowly, but do not fail explosively like a tube. I have successfuully repaired 5 tubeless tyres on my motorcycle and wifes car with plugs and all have not leaked and lasted the life of the tyres.
And it only takes about 2 minutes for the repair!!!!
regards Philip A

I'm with Phillip, tubeless are soooo much easier to repair, as long as it isn't something like a sidewall rip.

Spudboy, to be honest those tyres haven't been under about 24 psi running 'tubeless', but the plan for the future is to run 'second air' tubes for bead retention.....eventually. :wink:

I haven't seen the Tubed and Tubeless rims side by side (so this idea may be ridiculous), but if the only difference is the retention 'ridge', then could I get someone to lay down a similar shaped welded ridge in the same position? Sort of converting to tubeless.....

I was just watching this

HOW TO REPLACE A VALVE STEM WITHOUT BREAKING THE TIRE BEAD - YouTube

where a special tool is used to insert a tubeless valve stem into a rim without breaking the bead.

It got me thinking that it might be possible to use such a tool to do a bush repair on a tubed type rim, with a tubeless tyre, that had a tube fitted but failed. eg. a Perentie Rim, with a Michelin XZL that has been fitted with a tube.

Could you force the valve of the tube into the rim, insert a tubeless valve using one of these tools, inflate and run with the tube deflated inside the rim?