I bought a couple of 20" Presta inner tubes from Decathlon, not realising that their valve cores aren't removable, so they went back. Then I bought a couple of Schwalbe 20" SV 7 inner tubes from Halfords, it would turn out that these are barely wide enough to fit the inside of the rims that come with the Calibre Dune.
I've not converted a bike to tubeless before, so I'm not really sure what I'm doing yet. I'm assuming that the sealant should form a seal between the cut inner tube and the tyre bead, not the bare rim?
Do I chuck these inner tubes and get some of these Schwalbe 24" AV 10D (or 20" AV 7D) downhill ones that are mentioned in older threads? Or should I at least try and see if I can seal one of the ones I have first...?
Tubeless tyres don't use tubes and the air and sealant are held directly within the tyre and rim (although I think that there are still tubed based self-healing systems such a Slime).
What you do next will depend on whether your rims and tyres are tubeless ready but the rims will need to be taped to make them air and sealant tight.
There are some good online guides and plenty of folk on here with loads more experience than me with tubeless systems who I'm sure can help (I've never converted fat bike wheels).
@ pjay For this type of set up you do use a split tube on a fat bike.
@ OP I've always seen 24" tubes mentioned so think you might have to go that route. Coastkid does a great video on this.
@ pjay For this type of set up you do use a split tube on a fat bike.
I didn't know that, thanks!
I used the same tube as you split in half but before hand I taped with gorilla repair tape. I was going to just cut the valves out and use the valves with just the tape as I have on my other wheels but I wanted a bit more padding on the inside of the rim where the cutouts are. Worked great
Youtube has plenty tutorials.
Schraeder valves are much easier for ghetto tubeless. Also, if you have presta valves without removable cores, you can pour the sealant in just before you fit the last section of bead so you don't need to inject the sealant through the valve. If you need to top it up, just remove a couple of inches of the bead and pour in a bit more sealant.
that's the first time I've ever heard anyone sat Schraeder valves are easier than presta. I also inject via the valve rather than remove bead especially on fat as they can be hard to reseat. I've seen a guy in YouTube , Dr.p on here I believe actually injecting sealant into the tyre with a needle
This is my video from November 2016 on my Calibre Dune.
I still have the same ones on now. Went out for a Cotswolds loop on it today actually. Had to pull out and mend several thorn holes before the ride but it's still sealed up brilliantly.
I used Schwalbe AV something or other. 24" They only just bridge the rim on the Dune so you need to fill the rim valley with foam.
Hi,
Best inner tubes for fat ghetto I found were ChaoYang 20" fat bike inner tubes.
Bought via ebay from Ridewill.it
Cheers!
I.
@firestarter glad to know I didn't completely waste my money.
@eth3er I watched that before, it's not the process that's the problem, just the width of the inner tubes I purchased.
@kayak23 yours looked like they had a similar width to the ones I used, so gives me some hope they'll stay up!
@IvanMTB they don't appear to have those ones listed anymore, but I'll keep an eye out, thanks for the tip.
In a twist of fate, I happened to have another attempt at getting them to stay up and it appeared to work. At least, it worked on the front wheel, I couldn't get the rear to go up at all (so I put the inner tuber back in that one). It meant I did actually get out for a quick ride, which was nice.
I may try this cling film method on the rear and see what that's all about.
Thanks for all the replies!
