Shop / Tools Tire Vulcanizing

[jeepin4x4james]

When I tore a KM3 a few weeks back and couldn’t find a replacement I got antsy and bought a vulcanizer and the necessary accessories… while I was waiting for the gum rubber to arrive from China I found a set of KM3’s… ah well, I got a couple other sets of tires with sidewall damage. Might as well fix them all!

Let me preface this: I’ve never done this, learning as I go. Very little technical data online.








This XTerrain sticky had a sidewall hole and tear… can see daylight through the tear! I wheeled on this quite a bit with lots of plugs, had keep a bunch on hand since it liked to spit them out when the sidewall flexed.


Did a little prep work and went to town

 

[jeepin4x4james]

Turned out pretty good.
I used a pull through plug/patch on the hole.


I cut it flush and went over it with the gum rubber.
Multiple layers of staggering size went in the tear, with a couple heat/press cycles to get it all in.
I’ll do a 40” DOT MT/R next, then finally on to my KM3’s with all that experience under my belt 🍺

 

[jeepin4x4james]

I’ll be posting these tires for sale too, FYI. And the rims they were on (unless I can find some used 20” 8x6.5 beadlocks, I really liked these tires)

 

[RockChucker]

Nifty. Curious where you got the vulcanizer and what is?

 

[jeepin4x4james]

Uses heat/pressure to bond the rubber tire and patch.

My grandpa had a few like this, my dad said it was a normal thing to fix tires at home using these and an old gas torch.

I've got his old ones in a box somewhere in my garage... Seemed much more difficult to control heat with those though.

I looked a few years ago and nearly bought a commercial one with a friend ($3k+) but ended up holding off... glad I did, this was much cheaper and seems to work well for what I want.

I bought this one. on Amazon, along with a buffer, buffing compound, TemVulc bonding cement and gum rubber.

I searched around but could find very few informative videos or writeups. There is no temp control on the unit I bought, you can plug in either or both heat elements and set a timer. No information on time... I found something on Rema's website I think (can't recall 100% where it was) that said to do 4min per 1/32" rubber - no idea if it meant just the gum rubber or the entire sidewall... I ended up doing 20-30min each and that seemed to work well.

 

[BCGPER]

That last picture was for repairing inner tubes using hot patches. It was an awesome way to do it as a kid since it involved smoke and fire.

 

[jeepin4x4james]

That last picture was for repairing inner tubes using hot patches. It was an awesome way to do it as a kid since it involved smoke and fire.

Nice!
I’ll have to dig out the ones I got from him, there’s a few. One looks like a big C and I imagine it goes directly on a tire sidewall…

I kinda want a portable rubber extruder now too (saw in some vids, think rubber hot glue gun) but damn, they’re expensive! (over $2k).