# If someone buys a new Troy Bilt with new airless tires



## tomlct1 (Jan 6, 2016)

Would you tell us how they work? That's interesting. Last winter, I had a nail in 1 of my tires (2008 Ariens 24"). I was able to plug it and replace the air before the tire came loose from the rim, but if someone did not have an air compressor, getting a flat on a tubeless tire can be a real problem. These airless tires would keep you safe from that, if they also have decent traction.


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## e.fisher26 (Nov 6, 2016)

Older machines has airless tires(60s 70s) there's a huge benefit in flexing rubber for grip. On the other hand, the older tires were not big on tread, so possible trade off?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Spectrum (Jan 6, 2013)

Cold, low pressure and tubeless have been a prescription fussy tires. Some wheel sets are happy others not so much so there could be some value in getting away from this combination.

The "airless tires fell into two categories.Those being hard rubber and semi pneumatic.

The hard rubber relies on hard compound along with stout and firm side walls and treads. The hard tires were not optimum for traction. They were often seen on low end single speed machines. in reality they were a clutching means. If the machine could not make headway commensurate with the wheel speed the tires would spin leading to heavy tread wear. Gilson's smallest machines used these wheels in chevron patterns. Other had much flatter limited grip rubber. Take a look at this AMF or this Roper. The wheels are essentially built around the rubber making them non-renewable.

The next step up was semi-pneumatic. These are rubber donuts with thread and trapped air. The trapped air combined with heavy rubber allows some flex. If they develop leaks from cracking or perforation they become soft. The son of the man that sold these to Gilson sent the following explanation.
--------------->
For semi-pneumatic tires, the mfg process was basically thus:
1. The wheel was either molded plastic (high density polyethylene),
which was mostly used for lawn mowers, trash cans and such, or steel,
fabricated by a variety of methods, usually stamped parts spot welded
together.
2. The tire was made from largely what was called reclaimed rubber, so
I'm not surprised that they are deteriorating after all these years.
That is, there was a lot of old, ground up used auto tire rubber in
there, and the rest was typically SBR (synthetic butyl rubber) or maybe
EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) in quantities sufficient to
provide some body to all the reclaimed rubber. A hollow tube of
uncured/semi-cured rubber was extruded and cut into lengths. Each piece
was bent around and stuck together at the ends so that you got a
doughnut shape piece of soft, sticky rubber tubing. That was placed in
a mold that had the tread and final shape, and a needle, sort of like a
basketball inflation needle was stuck into the hollow tubing. Air was
injected into the tubing to expand it to fill the tire to the shape of
the mold, and heat cured the rubber.
3. To put the tires on the wheels, a machine would grab the tire in
several places (4, I believe, but it's been a long time since I saw one
of these) and stretch it out enough to slip it over the tire rim. They
might have been warmed up prior to doing this. Once in place the
machine would release the tire and it would snap back to size on the
wheel. You had to be careful doing this, because the joint where the
rubber tube was joined to form a doughnut shape was not real strong,
even after vulcanizing, so it could pull apart. I know I saw my dad
mount a few lawnmower tires on the wheel "by hand" in the basement by
heating the tire up in very hot water, but it wasn't a production process.
I'm pretty sure that the solid tires were mounted the same way, but I
never saw that done. They might have been heated to make them stretch
better, because they were stiffer than the semi-pneumatic tires. If I
recall correctly, the tires on my Gilson were pretty wide and low
profile for that type of tire, but I'm sure they were assembled by this
type of process. I don't think you'd ever get a tire as large and wide
as the Gilson tires on a rim without a machine and heat.
--->

I think if I had my druthers I'd do pneumatic with tubes.

Pete


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## tomlct1 (Jan 6, 2016)

Yes to pneumatic with tubes from me, also. One time, the tubeless tire on my wheelbarrow was low, and I had a load in it and changed direction. That flexed the tire, & broke the seal at the bead. I forced a tube into it (the hole in the rim is not exactly where the stem of the tube is, but it works), and it has been that way for 3-4 years now.


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## bad69cat (Nov 30, 2015)

X3 I would opt for tubes as well. I have added them on lots of machines with good results.  Try to get the metal stem ones though - it really helps


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