DIY side cut tire repair

The next season of reboot is approaching. And you may remember that there is a joint on one of the tires after the last winter / summer - a small bump. I don't want to run to the store for one new tire. We understand. Or maybe it still looks like if you repair it?

Yes, not every wheel that meets a nail, reinforcement sticking out of the ground or a sharp stone on the road is considered damaged. Everything, of course, depends on the scale of the damage and its location on the tire itself. Some are easy to repair, while others are simply impossible to do - send the tire only to the trash.

A swelling on the wheel, called a bump or hernia among drivers, is the most common defect in the sidewall of a tire. It appears because of a collision with an obstacle or after falling into a hole, more often at high speed. The sidewall carcass threads are easily damaged from impact, and the tire at this point can no longer hold the load and air pressure - swelling appears. A small bump sooner or later turns into a big one, and it is dangerous to drive with such a defect - the wheel can shoot at any moment. At high speed, this is fraught with loss of control, departure from the road and a coup.

The quality of roads in Kazakhstan contributes to the appearance of hernias on the tires
Some types of hernias are repairable, although this is a temporary measure. No patch will be able to restore the factory hardness. Ideally a tire change.

Special cord plasters will be able to extend the life of a tire with a hernia, even if swelling appears on the tread. Sidewall is another story. If the bulge appears at a distance of more than 40 mm from the side, it can be repaired. If not, the wheel is exactly for replacement. Bulges on low profile tires are often not repairable.

For the safest ride with the repaired bump, insert the camera. It is an inexpensive and reliable solution. In our market you can find cameras of Chinese and Russian production, the latter are slightly more expensive, but also of better quality.

Side cut

The elimination of a side cut is a serious operation, therefore, as in the case of a lump, you will have to go to the professionals. We need cord patches, since nowadays they are in different sizes and with a different number of layers. And if you do it according to your mind, then you can not do without special tools and vulcanization.

Overhaul of the tire. We wouldn't put such a wheel on ourselves
Low profile tires can be repaired, but more difficult. Sidewall tears are easier to seal on medium to high profile tires.

Sometimes a cut is confused with a pluck. This is when the outer layer of the sidewall caught on something sharp, a tear was formed, but at the same time the frame itself remained intact. There is nothing wrong with that, although the drivers at the tire service are successfully repaired by the repair of the cut, for which they are charged accordingly.

In Europe, defective or worn-out tires are punctured before being scrapped in order to exclude their resale and possible exploitation. But they don't know that we have such holes on the sidewall that they patch up once or twice.

Side ring destruction

Cuts and hernias are not the only possible damage to the side of the tire. You can also spoil the side ring, for example, in the process of re-shoeing. If you look at the garlic, then such a tire is already dangerous. Sooner or later, the pressure in the tire and the load in motion will begin to squeeze the rubber from the rim - a wheel explosion may occur.

If the side ring tears are barely noticeable, but the wheel still lowers, then you can use a special liquid - the bead seal, designed to seal the tubeless tire.

Similar seals have been used in motorsport for some time. In particular, in the American Formula D drift series, pilots used compounds to keep the tire on the disc even with minimal wheel pressure. They are now banned

Pay attention to the left rear wheel of the Nissan Silvia S13. Due to too low pressure, it was literally removed from the disk under load.

Every student faced this problem, patching the camera of his bicycle after hitting something sharp. To repair a car tire puncture with your own hands is also not difficult, even on the road. But for this you need a pump (or compressor) and a universal tire repair kit with harnesses. All this is sold at any car market or gas station.

Roadside tire repair with harnesses

The process is simple. If we are talking about the front wheels, then in most cases the wheel does not even need to be removed, it is enough to turn the steering wheel in the right direction, find the puncture site and carry out repairs. First, the hole is cleaned with a screw-shaped awl from the kit. The tourniquet itself is coated with glue and tucked into the eye of the awl, after which it is inserted into the hole of the tire. With a sharp movement, the instrument is removed, and the tourniquet remains in place and clogs the hole. The tails are cut with a knife, but not at the root, it is recommended to leave about 20 mm. The tire is inflated, checked.

Puncture repair at tire service

With tourniquets, punctures are also repaired at a specialized service, although among professionals such repairs are not considered long-term. After a few months, the flagella will dry out and can allow air to pass through. There are also more advanced methods such as hot and cold curing. The latter is more reliable. In this case, the hole is sealed with an elastic plaster, and the funnel from a foreign object is filled with a special compound. Then a vulcanizer is put on the tire, it heats the rubber and solders it.

In addition to the plaster, the puncture is also repaired with special cord fungi. The craftsmen process the puncture site: they drill it out and process the surface with a roughing tool. Then the repair area is greased with glue (also called cement) and the fungus is introduced. This is done from the inside of the tire. The cap of the fungus rolls in, and the excess legs from the outside are simply cut off.

Puncture repair with sealant

With the advent of tubeless wheels and later Run Flat tires, many car manufacturers began to ditch spare wheels. Instead of them, repair kits with compressors are supplied with the machines. A repair kit is essentially a pressurized sealant bottle. Later, such cans began to appear on the shelves of ordinary car dealerships.

This method did not take root in the CIS, since the condition of the roads forces you to have at least a stowaway in the kit, but you can also consider it as a way of repairing on the road.

The car must be jacked up and the sealant must be pumped into the damaged wheel through the nipple. Next, you should spin the wheel, then pump it up, lower the car and drive a few hundred meters. If the tightness of the tire is not restored, repeat the procedure.

Retreading

For commercial vehicles, tread cutting with a special device (regruver) is a common thing. Moreover, this tire retreading is provided by the factory (marked REGROOVABLE on the sidewall) to increase the service life. But there are entrepreneurs who undertake to deepen grooves in tires for passenger cars. But they are not intended for such an operation. Often used tires put up for sale are "refreshing" in this way. Be careful!

The worst option is that a retreaded tire will shoot up on the road, as the grooves deepening can damage the tread layer. At some point, such a tire will not be able to hold the pressure. There will be a boom! At best, the tire will actually last a little longer, but is the game worth the candle? It seems to us that it is not worth it.

A regruver is used to cut the tread.Roughly speaking, this is a large soldering iron with replaceable tips of different shapes. The apparatus goes through the rubber like a knife through butter.

If a tire is for passenger cars, then it is worth taking up the regrover only in one case - when part of the tread pattern was welded with "new" rubber during repairs. This is where the groove comes in handy in order to restore the grooves and symmetry of the tread.

What does the traffic rules say about tires for passenger cars?

Vehicle operation is prohibited if:

- tires have a residual tread height of less than 1.6 mm;

- tires have punctures, cuts, breaks, exposing the cord, as well as delamination of the carcass, detachment of the tread and sidewalls;

- tires in size or permissible load do not correspond to the car model;

- tires of various sizes, designs (radial, diagonal, chamber, tubeless), models, with different tread patterns, winter and summer, studded and non-studded, new and remanufactured are installed on one axle of the car;

- tires restored according to the second class of repair are installed on the front axle.

What is the second class of repair?

This is the case when the tire carcass is restored after serious damage. A side cut (or tear) is a serious damage to the tire carcass.

During the operation of the car, the most common problem is various damage to the wheels. The bulk of the damage is due to punctures of the running part of the tire, the repair of which does not present any particular problems even without contacting the tire service, for this it is enough to have a repair kit in the trunk. The most unpleasant thing that can happen is a side cut in the tire. It is quite difficult to repair this type of damage, and it is not always possible.

Many tire shops, advertising their services, promise high quality and quick repair of side cuts of tires. However, before contacting the masters, you need to figure out whether this makes sense.

Any tire is a rubber product with a metal or textile cord inside. The cord is responsible for the rigidity of the product, ensures the retention of its shape in the inflated state, and is responsible for the reliable adhesion of the wheel to the asphalt.

Depending on how the cord thread is positioned relative to each other, tires are divided into:

• diagonal - in which the threads intersect with each other at a certain angle;
• radial - in which the threads do not intersect, and each of them is perpendicular to the circumference of the wheel.

A side cut on a tire means damage to the cords. In radial tires, each thread is responsible for the rigidity and strength in its area, and in case of damage, it will no longer be possible to restore the original characteristics, and therefore driving on a repaired tire is unsafe, especially at high speeds and on bad roads.

The situation is somewhat simpler with diagonal tires, however, it is very difficult to find them on sale. Since the cords in them cross each other, the load is distributed between them more evenly, and therefore the repair gives better results compared to radial tires. Perhaps this is their only advantage.

Truck tire repairs are rated based on the number of broken cords. If there are more than ten of them, the repair is meaningless, and the tire is only suitable for disposal.

Since a side cut in a tire is not an ordinary puncture, it takes much more time and care to fix it. The repair technology includes several stages.

1. The tire must be removed from the disc, and then cut off the edges of the cut in order to more reliably boil the area.
2. The edges of the cut must be ground off in such a way that the damage takes the shape of a bowl, after which the surface is coated with special cement.
3. Raw rubber is prepared (cut into thin strips and stretched).
4. The cavity of the "bowl" is filled with raw rubber and vulcanized.
5. It is necessary to mark and clean up the place where the reinforced patch will be installed.
6. The prepared place must be degreased and greased with cement, which should then dry out a little. The patch is then glued into place and the edges are sealed with a sealant.
7. The tire is mounted and the wheel is balanced.

According to this algorithm, a full-fledged repair of tire side cuts is performed. You can watch the video in more detail about the repair technology. Often, tire changers, either because of insufficient qualifications, or because of their own laziness, violate the technology.