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vitesse tyres tubes ?


paulfosh

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help please,, just had a set of tyres fitted to my 1965 1600 vitesse.   garage informed me I need to get tubes as the rims are not suitable for tubeless and the only thing keeping the tyres on the rims is air, have spoken to different tyre outlets and getting conflicting advice, some say leave as is as it is safer others say I need tubes, confused the wheels are standard steel original.

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Technically they are correct.  More modern rims have a step in the surface where the tyre bead sits to make it more secure.  In practice problems only arise if the tyre pressure is way too low and it's subject to high cornering loads when the bead may be forced off the rim causing immediate full deflation.  This can also happen with the more modern rims but lower pressures and higher loads can be tolerated.

The problem with putting tubes in most tubeless tyres is that tubeless tyres usually have rough, ribbed surfaces inside and these quite quickly wear holes in the tubes.  The tyre then goes down, though usually reasonably slowly as the air leaks out around the valve stem.  

I have run tubeless tyres on the old style rims for many years without problems - except when garages such as the one you've been dealing with insisted on putting tubes in them.  Those all failed after a few months.

Nick

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The rims are different to those on modern wheels, they are however NOT designed for tubed tyres.

All Heralds and Vitesses were fitted with tubeless tyres from the start of production. Your situation is quite common though, many tyre fitters have no knowledge of older wheel designs and make an incorrect assumption. The fitter is wrong, but good luck in convincing him of that, try another tyre supplier in the hope thay have more experienced staff,

Cheers,
Bill.

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