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How often do I need to top up the sealant in my tubeless setup?
How do you tell when it needs topping up?
Do I need to clean the old sealant from the tyre before I put new in and if o how do I clean ?
Thanks
Once every 6 months. And leave all the old crud in there it helps it seal. Use removable valve cores, remove them, top up through the value and replace the valve. Removing the bead to top up can result in much swearing as the excess gunk on the beads tends to prevent the bead reseating.
You know for sure it needs redoing when a puncture doesn't fix itself. So do it as preventative maintenance.
Some say 90 days, but depends on what temperature the tyre sees . If you press the valve the sealant will jizz on you if still liquid.
Take the wheel off, shake it, can you hear it slosh?
Depends on the sealent you have, temperature, how well sealed your system is, perhaps how many punctures you've had.
I use Orange Seal Endurance, which should last twice as long as standard sealents. I check it after 3 months then every month and a half or something. It normally lasts 6 months before a top up is needed.
I used to shake the wheel and listen to check the level, until I had some sealent that turned to water a couple of times. The shake and listen still produced a decent sound, even though the sealent had stopped working. So now I try to find the effort to remove the valve cores and use a dipstick to make sure there is still actual sealent inside.
As for cleaning, I sometimes peel the worst off before installing a tyre, especially around the bead, but it doesn't really matter.
Depends mostly on teh sealant, partly on where you keep the bike, partly on the tyres I think, and then largely on the phases of hte moon or something.
I've switched to Oko's Hi Fibre (same as Halo Fibretech) sealant mostly because it's water based- washes out easily and can be rediluted- if you think it's drying up, just add a little water. Doesn't work for any that's compeltely dried out but it keeps wet sealant going indefinitely. (and it's cheaper than Stans and IME equivalently as good). Only downside is, you can buy Stans in pretty much every bike shop if you ever need some in a hurry ie on holiday or something while Oko/Halo, not so much.)