I had a flat tire on my last trip and made a few interesting discoveries while trying to nurse the plugged tire back home. The full write up is here: Adventures in Tire Plugging.
Those mushroom type of plugs tend to fall back inside the tire.
There are string types that are very capable of outlasting the tire.
I would recommend Safety Seal plugs in various sizes, with glue.
BTW, I believe it is Michelin that does not use steel belts. A big plus for tire plugs.
Best.
Mushrooms are fine, providing, you ream the hole, use no oil in assembling, i tend to stretch them back out of the insertion, then apply rubber solution around the shaft and let that pull back. Inflate the tyre to full pressure, then a sharp blade to trim flush. Hundreds of miles like that. Steel belts can compromise a plug, if it eventually leaks, push it in and then replug, though I've just started using strings and they appear faster to apply.
Wouldn't attempt to use sparklet bulbs, great for soda, but useless for a good inflation. Two up I would have increased the tyre pressure to say 46-48, providing less flex on a laden bike
I have NEVER had a plug fail. Ridden them thousands of miles and at extremely high speeds. I use the stringy tar like one from Walmart and always ream the hole before plugging. I also keep tire in bike when plugging. It sometimes takes extreme strength to plug and I am able to do that (many cant). Just plugged a tire in the middle of bfe Wyoming last week...
I've plugged several M/C tires over the years, using the both the old style plugs and mushrooms. Once plugged and aired, if it didn't leak then it didn't leak until the tire was worn out and needed replacement.
I have been uneasy about the plug i recently installed in my K. I used to be a tire jockey back in my teens. Always had good luck. The stringy style plugs are all we use and what I have in my rear tire. Lots of glue and I leave the tire monitor on and have kept an eye on it. I would have replaced, but is only 1400 miles old...
As it turns out, I had to install yet another plug in a newish tire (only ~2k miles on it) out in the middle of Montana last week. This time a took a friend's advice and reamed the crap out of the hole before installing the plug. I then proceeded to ride at normal speeds for 231 miles to Spokane where I was able to install a new rear tire.
I chalk up my bad experiences with the original plugging post to the lack of sufficient reaming to keep the belts from cutting the plugs.
Calling RL on chiming in with the thread reference on his Safety Seal kit? I'm looking to figure out how to minimize that kit to something that takes up very little space. RL posted up a while back how to reconfigure those big T-handles in the kit to pack it up small.
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