Slow puncture on a Nissan 350Z

One of todays jobs was a little different. The customer called me out saying that he had a slow puncture and could I fix it for him. He was based down in Hayling Island, so it was a bit of a trek, but well within the areas I cover.

The car was a Nissan 350Z with deep dish alloy wheels, it had very small holes in the wheels that required slim sockets to get the nuts off. Once I had the car jacked up and the wheel off, I checked all around the tyre for any sign of a puncture, not finding anything, I then checked around the rim for signs of a leak caused by corrosion of the alloy. Still nothing, I then checked the valve - this car having deep dished alloys, has a valve that comes out in the centre of the rim, it was then fitted with 90 degree steel valves which were bolted in. This turned out to be the problem as air was bubbling out from the base of the valve.

To fix the problem I had to take the tyre off from the reverse side due to the deep dish. I was then able to see that this had been 'fixed' before, someone had just covered the valve and seal with a liquid sealer which had not worked very well, as it had leaked again.

I unbolted the valve to find that the rubber seal had actually split in two. These were special valves designed for these wheels and are not readily available off the shelf, so I could not just change it for another valve, so it was a case of seeing what I could do to rescue the exissting valve.

Covering it with a liquid sealer was obviously not the answer, as this had been done and failed. I checked through some old valves I keep for spares and found one with the same type of rubber seal on it. Once I had this seal off the old valve, it was a simple job of putting it onto this steel valve and refitting it back into the wheel. The tyre was then replaced, inflated and re-balanced. Before refitting the wheel I rechecked the valve with a leak detector, all was well and I had one happy customer.

I did recommend to the customer that he visits a wheel centre to see if they have any new valves to fit his wheels, as they are all old, and chances are they will all start to fail soon.

If you have any puncture problems, or just need new tyres, give us a call here at Hometyre