General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak.

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Tue 13 May 2008 22:48
General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak. - FotheringtonThomas
My old Cavalier has a slow leak on one tyre, possibly caused by flaking "paint" on the wheel, causing an imperfect seal where the bead seats. Is there a dirt-cheap remedy for this? Will a tyre fitter scrape off the flaky paint and re-fit the tyre? I can get it off myself, and do this - possibly treating the wheel to some "Smoothrite" - what do you recommend? I don't want to spend money on this, but I don't want to have to keep pumping it up every time I want to use the car!

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 14/05/2008 at 01:31

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Tue 13 May 2008 23:01
1995 2.0 General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak. - Pugugly
Rub down and re-paint used to solve this on my Moggie 1000 !
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Wed 14 May 2008 00:21
1995 2.0 General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak. - piston power
Remove the tyre and the valve & get the wire wheel in the drill and clean up the rim.

The black bits of rubber will be stuck to the rim and flakey alloy just clean up & spray with galvanising spray & refit a new valve & tyre.

We used to use tyre soap on the rim and tyre never had a problem, when inflated just check with water around the bead to make sure of a good seal.

ps: remove the balancing weights when cleaning the rim to make a good seal..

good luck........
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Wed 14 May 2008 01:30
1995 2.0 General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak. - Dynamic Dave
Remove the tyre and the valve & get the wire wheel in the drill and
clean up the rim.


That's basically what I did when my old Cavalier alloys started leaking around the rims. Once clean I then sprayed the bare metal with silver smoothrite (it was a good colour match for the original paint, and I obviously masked up anywhere that didn't warrant painting) and left to dry in the hot sunshine.
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Wed 14 May 2008 00:32
1995 2.0 General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak. - FotheringtonThomas
Rub down and re-paint used to solve this on my Moggie 1000 !


Alloy wheels, on a Moggie? Blimey!

I'll give the wire brush 'n Dettol approach a go.

Edited by Webmaster on 16/05/2008 at 02:02

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Wed 14 May 2008 14:08
General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak. - Victorbox
if you are repainting the wheel good belt & braces article here tinyurl.com/5sr66x

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Wed 14 May 2008 14:12
General Question: Alloy wheel, slow leak. - L'escargot
The first thing I would do is dunk the wheel (complete with inflated tyre) in the bath and see whether I could find the leak.
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