In one of my recent posts, I explained how I change my own tires. You might notice, if you have your tires changed at a professional tire shop, that they tend to replace valve stems when they change the tires. I’ve been skipping over this step and it finally came around to bite me. After a particularly violent autocross lap I found this on my rear tire:
No worries. Valve stems are easy to replace if you have a tire changer. The tire doesn’t even have to be removed from the wheel, it just needs to be debeaded. I’ve seen people do this without tire changing tools just by driving a car onto the side of the deflated tire, but that's not the ideal method.
With the bead broken, getting the old stem out is easy if the stem has been broken like the one above. It just pushes into the wheel. I tried once (and only once) to remove a valve stem as a whole piece, and it really doesn’t work out. If the stem isn’t already completely broken, it’s best to slice it off flush with the wheel with a sharp knife and push the remains into the wheel.
Bad stem vs good (new) stem:
Remember that ridiculously cheap valve stem tool I referenced in the tire changing post? One of its several uses is pulling valve stems into place. The new stem goes from the inside out, but it can be tricky to pull into place without a handle of some sort. A little soapy water helps too.
With the valve core screwed into place and the tire reinflated, that’s it. Valve stem replacement complete - for one tire, anyway.
Because one stem had gone bad I checked the remaining three. Sure enough, one of the others was on its way out. See the slice at the base of the stem? That won’t last long.
Valve stems are something I didn’t think twice about before, but for the few extra bucks they cost I’ll be changing them with every tire change in the future.
No worries. Valve stems are easy to replace if you have a tire changer. The tire doesn’t even have to be removed from the wheel, it just needs to be debeaded. I’ve seen people do this without tire changing tools just by driving a car onto the side of the deflated tire, but that's not the ideal method.
With the bead broken, getting the old stem out is easy if the stem has been broken like the one above. It just pushes into the wheel. I tried once (and only once) to remove a valve stem as a whole piece, and it really doesn’t work out. If the stem isn’t already completely broken, it’s best to slice it off flush with the wheel with a sharp knife and push the remains into the wheel.
Bad stem vs good (new) stem:
Remember that ridiculously cheap valve stem tool I referenced in the tire changing post? One of its several uses is pulling valve stems into place. The new stem goes from the inside out, but it can be tricky to pull into place without a handle of some sort. A little soapy water helps too.
With the valve core screwed into place and the tire reinflated, that’s it. Valve stem replacement complete - for one tire, anyway.
Because one stem had gone bad I checked the remaining three. Sure enough, one of the others was on its way out. See the slice at the base of the stem? That won’t last long.
Valve stems are something I didn’t think twice about before, but for the few extra bucks they cost I’ll be changing them with every tire change in the future.
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