Tubed Tire Repair Question...

[ptgb]

Not for a Valk... but I trust the opinions on here more than anywhere else.

On my wife's V Star 650 Classic, she picked up a small nail yesterday about 50 miles from home. We left the bike there and picked it up later after we tried a plug on the side of road but didn't work. The tire only has 3000 miles on it and is in great condition. The nail was nowhere near the sidewall area.

After thinking about it and researching, realized it is a tubed tire (didn't think about the spoked wheel at the time  ???). It was ridden probably 2-3 miles as it was losing air before it was realized that something was wrong, plug attempted, and then "walked" onto a trailer and into the garage on little to no air in it.

Questions...because I have no experience with a tubed tire... can you simply patch the inside of the tire and replace the tube? Any concerns with doing it this way? Any concern due to it being ridden on low air, i.e. unseen sidewall damage, etc?

If there is any chance that it will shorten the life of the tire, or cause other concerns, I will replace it instead of fix it... I want to keep my wife confident in/with her machine.  

As a sidenote, this is the 4th rear tire lost to nail/screw/metal in the last three years (3 on Valk, 1 on V Star)... at least this one was only 50 miles from home... 1 other was 600 miles from home, another 2500 miles   [rant over].

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Spirited-6]

Questions...because I have no experience with a tubed tire... can you simply patch the inside of the tire and replace the tube? Any concerns with doing it this way? Any concern due to it being ridden on low air, i.e. unseen sidewall damage, etc?

I see no reason to replace tube or tire. Why not patch tube and re-install, check for air pressure in a few days. I would not think there would be any sidewall damage in what you are telling. A small nail would not damage tire IMO. My 15 cents. 
I am sure you will get a lot of views. 

[F6Dave]

Back when I started riding in the 70s, all tires had tubes.  I took some long (5000+ miles) trips on my Kawasaki 900 back then, and always carried spare tubes and one of those spark plug air pumps.  I had to fix a flat in upstate NY once.  WIth an OEM center stand and toolkit, I got dirty but was back on the road in an hour or so.  Luckily the tires in those days were pretty flexible, so you could remove one bead and stuff a new tube in like on a bicycle.

You can patch the tube (I've done that, too) but for the price of a new one I'd just replace it.

[Ricky-D]

Yup, the concern is real!

It's right there at the patch on the tube where failure will happen and with a tube tire it's usually a very fast deflation.

On a front tire, a deflation can be very dangerous especially on the interstate where there is no quarter given!

The tire is usable but I would always suggest a new tube.

Life is short!

***

[R J]

Replace the tube, they are cheap in price.

Put a rubber mud flap on the front fender to knock those nails down that the front tire stands up for the rear tire to get ahold of........

Worked well for me in 242,000 + change miles on MGM.

I had always wondered why our Police Motors had flaps on the front.
Asked the Harley Rep one day as they were factory installed.   The above is what he told me.

I though to myself BS, I had had a few flats on my personal motor, but there were not very many in our Police fleet.   Fleet of 45 and maybe 1 flat a week for all the miles we put on daily.  This was in my area only.   So, I tried it, seems to work as I have only had maybe 3 rear flats in the above mileage since I added the flap.

We rode alleys, back roads with very little traffic, the road to the landfill, fire roads in the hills, so we were pretty susceptible to nails and etc.   More so than your average rider.

[ptgb]

Patching the tube was never on the radar, going to buy a new tube no matter what.

Going to patch the inside of the tire and replace the tube... think it will be fine.

Thanks for the replies.