Tire Valve Maintenance

Dora~Jean

Active member
Well this is a strange item, eh? A day before my last trip, I topped off the tires, all were about 5-7 lbs low. Next morning, did a walk around before hitching up, left rear tire absolutely flat. Couldn't figure out how one day it was fine, never moved, next day it was flat.

So I filled it with air to pull the trailer away from the fence for a closer inspection. As I removed the air fitting I heard air, it was coming from the valve center -- stuck valve (big sigh of relief). Pulled it, found salt corrosion, replaced it, held fine.

Even though I have dust caps on all the valves, they are evidently not water tight. So I shot each with Boeshield T-9 and will add it to my regular maintenance list! This has never happened in all my years of boating.
 
We used to carry extra Schrader valves in our cars because this was a more of a problem in the past. Good thought! The old caps used to have a tool on top to unscrew the valve.
 
Funny thing you mention that....happened to me last week... Sue's car had a flat one morning...she backed out of the driveway, noticed the flat and drove back up to the garage.... ruining the tire... so I filled the tire with my compressor so I could get to a tire shop....and noticed the problem was the valve core....yep...stuck... replaced that and got air into the tire... it had cuts from being driven on..so it was junk....would have been upset but it was more than 1/2 worn out.. front wheel drive so I replaced both sides....

Good think it was not a AWD Suburu or Audi where you need to replace ALL tires at one time......Yeow !

Joel
SEA3PO
 
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