KurveyGirl.com - stems now installed. By bobf (Read 1,260 times)

[bobf]

On Wednesday 11 May 2011 at 10:00 am I ordered a set of tire valves stems from KurveyGirl using the web ordering item. Today at 3:00 pm I have the valves waiting in the garage for me to get busy.

Amazing response time from those folks in KurveyGirl. Glad I took the advice of the folks on this forum.

The valve stems look real good and now I have a chance to install facing away from the disc brake pads. I hope then I can check or inflate without losing so much air.

Put a plus mark beside their name. They deserve it.
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[bobf]

Yesterday the front wheel, today the rear wheel. Some problems but all in all not too bad.

I used the valve stem video as a guide. Problem there is that the valve stems in the video were the pull in style and mine were with a threaded stem and washers and nuts to install.

First I removed the core from the valve stem. It blew the core across the garage, so on the rear wheel I first let much of the air out and had good control over the core then.

OK, I started by using a 6" C-Clamp above the valve stem to pull the tire away from the one side to the other side. I also used a 5" C-Clamp, should have had two 6" clamps, and pulled below the valve stem. It took a few minutes to do this but finally I could see the inside rubber part with not tire in the way.

I tried to pull the stem up and out as shown in the video but that did not work at all. I took my box knife and cut the stem off just above the rim while pulling up with the vise-grips. Then went below the rim and removed the bottom part.

Then I put the new valve stem in the hole from the top. Went to the tire side and was able to slip the lower rubber gasket on to the threads and push it up to the rim. Followed that with a metal washer that is provided.

Now for the tricky part. Getting two fingers, holding a nut, between the tire and the threaded shaft of the valve stem, and while doing that, getting the nut to engage and spin up the threads. It took me many tries but eventually done. I tightened the nut against the washer till I considered it tight enough.

Now for the second tricky part. Same as above, but with another nut that becomes the jam nut for the installation. Again many tries, but finally it engaged and spun up against the first nut.

Held the first nut with a thin 1/2" open wrench and used a 1/2" box wrench to tighten the second nut against the first nut.

Then a lot of frustrating effort began. I removed the clamps, took my rubber mallet and started hammering the tire to get it to go back into place. Rubber head flew off so I switched to a 48 oz steel hammer. Did pretty well on the front tire. On the back wheel the tire did not want to return to position. Enough air leaked that I could not use air pressure to force it either. Finally made up some soapy water and squirted it along the exposed rim by the tire. Again had air running and started hammering the tire with my hammer, finally a pop and the tire was again seated.

Time will tell if all this was worth it or not. I will just have to keep checking the pressure to see if, and how badly, the tire may be leaking.

At least now I have the valve stems faced away from the brake discs. Easy to get the air hose on or the pressure gauges.
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