If you get a puncture in a tyre which has plenty of tread on it you will probably be reluctant to discard and replace the tyre.  Tyres are expensive and some punctures are repairable, so why not?

And there’s sometimes the need for a “get you home” repair anyway, because GoldWing tyres are widely stocked and can’t always be bought without delay.

If you still rode a BSA  Bantam 125 you might well be able to remove and replace a tyre after patching a hole in the inner tube  but roadside repairs of GoldWing tyres are simply not practical.  Safe repairs to tubeless tyres require the use of a special plug-patch device from the inside of the tyre and therefore tyre removal.

You need a proper bead seal breaker and a tyre removal and fitting machine to do a repair so professional recovery to a professional repairer – and maybe even unavoidable tyre replacement  is becoming the norm for GoldWings.

The ere is also the issue of keeping your motorcycle insurance valid.  It’s no accident or trivial matter that insurance documents these days include conditions like “kept in roadworthy condition”; illegal repairs would be regarded as failure to do so and therefore grounds for repudiation of the policy.  If you are riding with a temporary tyre repair when you have an accident, these days you will need to have a good story ready in case it gets noticed and if a temporary repair fails and causes an accident you’ll definitely need one.

So, if you experience tyre deflation or see a nail sticking out of your tyre all you can sensibly consider doing for yourself in the way of roadside repairs to a GoldWing tyre these days is a temporary repair to allow you to ride a reasonable distance home or to a professional repairer.  And you need to make sure it’s a good temporary repair, which is what this article is mostly about.

Your options for dealing with a puncture or other tyre deflation at the roadside with a GoldWing are limited:

• You can try to prevent rapid deflations occurring by putting “goo” in your tyres, so you will still be able to ride on with a nail still in your tyre to where you can get a repair done.
• If there is a hole in the tyre, due to a nail or similar, you can make a temporary repair using a suitable tyre plug and then re-inflate the tyre to get you home or to a repairer.
• Leakage from the tyre bead can cause a “slow puncture” and is often surface corrosion or contamination of the aluminium wheel rim; the tyre will need to come off for this to be remedied but it may be possible to re-inflate and ride slowly to a repairer.
• A slow “puncture” can also be caused by leakage from a rotted or split rubber base of the valve stem, which then requires immediate valve replacement.  Because of the risk of sudden complete failure you must not attempt to ride the bike to a repairer and a temporary repair should not be attempted in any circumstances.
• If you cannot do a temporary repair you will need a breakdown service (or a freind with van or trailer) get you home;  GoldWings aren’t the sort of bike you’d want to push very far.

Especially if you are away on tour, finding a tyre repairer/supplier can be problematic for GoldWing owners and so being able to ride on with a temporary repair can be invaluable.  At the very least you could then ride on to your night stop if necessary, for example if its a Sunday and you won’t be able to find a repairer until the following day at the earliest.  Although it’s not to be recommended, I have known a rider complete a European touring holiday with a temporary repair using a mushroom-shaped tyre plug.

After using a tyre plug to repair a puncture you will need to re-inflate the tyre before you can ride the bike again.  Tyre inflation CO2 cartridges (as pictured with the Tire Plugger Kit) work after a fashion but you will need half a dozen or more to re-inflate a GoldWing rear tyre to anything like running pressure and you may have to settle for partial re-inflation and limping slowly to a garage where it can be re-inflated properly.  Owning or riding with a mate who has a GL1500 is one of the best tyre re-inflation solutions because they have a built-in compressor on the bike.

If only because waiting for a recovery service to turn up can be a pain, using tyre goo and/or carrying typre plugging kit is a very useful safeguard, especially if you are touring away from home territory.

So far I’ve doubled up on these precautions: I’ve always used Ultraseal in both tyres and I also carry a tyre plugging kit and a tyre re-inflation kit too.

I have suffered a puncture (in the rear tyre) and the Ultraseal did its job by preventing deflation and, since the tyre was barely worn I did get it repaired (professionally, eventually) and the repair did then serve out its working life.  I have never yet used the tyre plugging kit on my own bike but I have seen one used, successfully, on another Wing while on tour.

And I have in the past experienced a motorcycle tyre repair being refused by one repairer on technical grounds and then willingly done by another one.  Which is why, when I had a slow puncture in one of our car tyres last week and was told it couldn’t be repaired I took it elsewhere to check.   This time the second repair said the same thing but his prices for a replacement tyre, perhaps because I wasn’t a captive customer (which the first tyre dealer probably thought I was) were almost half what the first repairer had quoted.

Once you get recovered with your GoldWing to a tyre repairer you become a captive customer so if you carry a tyre plugging kit you retain your options to shop around for an affordable repair or replacement and it might save you a lot of money.

Using “Ultraseal” in the tyres

Ultraseal isn’t the only “tyre goo” that’s sold for this purpose and maybe it wasn’t even the first on the market but it’s the one I’ve used for quite a few years so it gets a mention.

The idea of these slimy liquids, which you insert after fitting a tyre through the inflation valve sleeve (with the valve stem temporarily removed)  is that if there is penetration of the tyre the goo, when forced out of the hole will turn solid, so sealing up the hole and preventing further loss of air from the tyre.

It works exactly as advertised.  A wood screw penetrated through the tread of my rear bike tyre at a funny angle and the tyre didn’t deflate significantly; the first thing I noticed was the screw in the tyre on a routine tyre inspection.

The greatest value of these goos is however that they will reliably prevent rapid, destabilising deflation of a tyre of the sort which could cause an accident.  Even a serious gash in the tyre which might otherwise have led to instant deflation will be slowed down, hopefully enough to allow you to retain control of the bike.  There are doubtless some tyre failure which goo cannot mitigate but it reduces the overall risk to a motorcyclist of sudden tyre deflation very considerably – there can be no argument about that.

Motorcycle technicians and tyre fitters don’t like the stuff because it’s very messy to clean out when a tyre is removed and it is said to cause corrosion of aluminium wheels. – which it does because the last time my rear tyre came off there was a patch of surface damage to the wheel which could really only have been caused by the goo.  This was my spare set of wheels and that goo had been in there for a long, long time just sitting in the garage but the goo nevertheless seemed to have caused some surface erosion.  It wasn’t deep and it wasn’t extensive or anywhere near the wheel rim where the tyre bead sits – and I was having those wheels powder coated anyway so no real harm done.

I now have no doubt that tyre goo can cause damage to aluminium wheels, although I suspect that it will only happen because of contact in long term storage rather than normal use..

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice.  I will be putting goo in these replacement tyres, same as usual because I think having it in there is potentially life saving.  If I get some corrosion as part of the price and have to listen to the tyre mechanic moaning when he has to clean it out then I’ll live with it.

Using Tyre Plugs

I’ve not used my own “Tire Plugger” kit in earnest, despite carrying it in the bike for several years.  I bought mine in the USA while on holiday there and I have yet to see them sold in UK.  The photo on the left is a type sold in UK which is presumably up to the job but I wouldn’t want to rely on.

We were on tour in Scotland some years ago when one of the riders found that his rear tyre had gone down quite a bit overnight.  When we looked at his tyre it wasn’t surprising because he’d worn it almost down to the carcass and so there hadn’t been much rubber left to resist the nail which decided to jump on board.

One of the riders had a Tire Plugger kit (as in the top picture, which is the one I now carry) and out it came and into use.  The wheel stayed on the bike, the nail was pulled out, the hole reamed out with the gadget in the kit and then a mushroom-shaped plug was inserted using the clever pistol grip device which compresses the mushroom end so it can be pushed through to the inside and then allowed to expand back into shape, thereby giving the plug a dome-shaped lip around its inside end which abuts against the inside oif the tyre to prevent the plug coming out after application.

Tyre re-inflation CO2 cartridges were used to re-inflate the tyre on this occasion but with only limited success – two or three cartridges raised the pressure to only about 10 psi but that was enough for the bike to be ridden slowly to the nearest garage for proper re-inflation.

The grateful rider was given some heartfelt advice to change his tyres much earlier in future by the rest of us but despite the lack of remaining tread with the plug in place he was nevertheless able to ride his bike, albeit carefully and at reduced speed, a considerable distance to get home that day.

So tyre plugs, or at least proper, mushroom-shaped ones like those in the Tire Plugger Kit, seem to work very well.  The difficult bit if you are in the middle of nowhere is re-inflation after repair for which you need either a considerable supply of CO2 cartridges (at least half a dozen for a GoldWing rear tyre) or a GL1500′s built-in compressor.  One owner of a GL1800 I know carries a miniature 12v compressor, which is another solution.

Removing a GL1800 rear wheel at the roadside

Removing a rear wheel on a classic GoldWing (including a GL1500) is quite a performance and not to be undertaken at the roadside if you can avoid it.

GL1800 rear wheels are on the other hand easy to remove and replace.  never mind what it says in the handbook or service manual, loosen the wheel nuts while the bike is upright and then lay it down gently on its right hand side crash bars and remove the wheel nuts.  You’ll then need to tip the bike right over, rocking on the on the crash bars until the mirror touches down, so fold that backwards first and use a riding jacket to cushion the contact.  The rear wheel can then be pulled out from under without difficulty and without having to resort to any dismantling of the bike.

If you don’t know how to pick your GoldWing up unaided and haven’t practised it, do so before the need arises.  It’s much easier than it looks and the bike will take being lowered to the ground and picked up again for practise in its stride and without damage.  There are lots of videos on YouTube showing you how.  Click here to see a GL1800 being lifted up by a slim, small woman.

Using a recovery service

If your tyre damage is unrepairable having the bike recovered to your home or to a repairer becomes necessary and if you have to pay for it yourself you will find it works out very expensive.  Even being recovered off a motorway only as far as the next exit will cost a small fortune because you are a captive customer and in UK the police won;t let you wait on the motorway hard shoulder for a mate to come and collect you, you have to be recovered.

I’ve always paid to have the bike covered for recovery and although thankfully I’ve used it only rarely and for my older GoldWings, I wouldn’t dream of not having this type of cover, especially when touring abroad.  In my case it’s a package deal and covers car, motorhome and motorcycle and I doubt if the bike costs anything extra.

Of course you might need to explain when you make your call for help that it is a GoldWing, so it’s big and therefore the sort of van which they would send out for a sports bike might not be big enough.  And your buttock might clench a bit as your pride and joy is winched up onto the back of a huge recovery truck if that’s what turns up but in my experience the guys who do this work know their job and the risk of damage to the bike is low.

And being recovered by van or truck when necessary beats being stuck at the roadside indefinitely, that’s for sure.

When is a permanent repair possible?

Punctures which are simple holes (such as made by a nail) which have gone straight into a tyre (i.e. radially) and are well within the tread will usually be repairable providing the dealer is willing.  A permanent repair requires removal of the tyre from th wheel and so cannot realistically be done at the roadside.

Holes which are not straight or straight in, such as made by a jagged object which went in at at angle, and holes which are close to or in the tyre wall are not likely to be repairable.  Tyre fitters use a special gauge these days if necessary to measure how far in from the edge of the tread a hole is in order to comply with a legal requirement not to attempt potentially unsafe repairs. Broadly speaking anything within one centimetre of the edge of the tread is likely to be regarded as unrepairable.

The reason why even vulcanised patch repairs are not allowed on or close to the walls of a tyre is that they cannot cope with the considerable flexing of the tyre wall which occurs when the tyre in use.  Patches can only provide a safe and durable repair when they are applied to the inside of the tyre under the tread, which doesn’t flex anything like as much.

Ringing round the motorcycle dealers in my local area I could only find one who would even consider repairing a puncture in a motorcycle tyre and then only in a rear tyre.

They remove the tyre from the wheel, drill out the hole from the inside to the correct size for the plug, clean and abraid the inner surface around the hole, apply the special cement to the plug then pull it through from the inside so that the flat-topped mushroom patch is seated on the inner tyre surface.  Wiat for the cement to cure then cut off the surplus plug length from the outside.

I had a nearly new rear tyre repaired in this way a few years ago and it ran uneventfully for the rest of its wear life afterwards.

Motorcycle dealers’ reluctance to get involved in repairing punctures seems to stem directly or indirectly from the compensation culture which has developed in our society and the fear of being sued if anything subsequently goes wrong for which they could be blamed.  The dealer who still repairs rear tyres said they have never experienced a failure of a repair they’ve done, front or rear, but they now restrict repairs to rear tyres because their suppliers and/or the tyre companies no longer recommend repairing front tyres.

Even though a safe and durable repair of a puncture in a motorcycle tyres should be possible using these long-stemmed plug-patches and special adhesive tyre cement,  you may therefore find yourself unable to find anyone who runs a reputable motorcycle dealership who will actually do it.  Nor can you buy the plug-patches to use yourself because they are only supplied to the trade.

I learned from one dealer I spoke to that one of the consequences of the limited or non-availability of professional standard repairs to motorcycle tyres is that “shoestring” bikers (i.e. bikers who simply can’t afford a new tyre in the present economy) are being driven to trying or seeking out cowboy repairs and so putting their lives at risk by running on dodgy tyres.  This illustrates how laws which are ostensibly in the interests of fair recompense and measures which are introduced in the interests of safety can sometimes have the opposite effect.

Summary

I recommend using “goo” in your tyres even though there may be  some risk of wheel corrosion because reducing the risk of sudden deflation of a motorcycle tyre can save your life.

Checking the integrity of the rubber base of your tyre inflation valves every time you check your tyre pressures is a good prevention strategy too.

Temporary repairs using tyre plugs are useful for getting you home or to a repairer but a permanent, professional repair or failing that tyre replacement will be necessary subsequently; it’s not safe to keep running on a temporary repair.

Mushroom-shaped plugs (“button” mushrooms) and a proper Tire Plugger tool (or similar) is necessary for reasonably safe temporary repairs.  Don’t even think about using anything less secure, even as a temporary repair, on a motorcycle tyre it’s far too dangerous.

You cannot repair damage to a tyre which is on or near to the tyre wall.  It’s unsafe and it’s also illegal.

Lots of motorcycle dealers will not repair motorcycle tyres because they don’t want to risk being sued if the repair fails, even though the repair methods are robust and it would be legal (and safe) to do so.

If you can’t get a puncture repaired to professional standards bite the bullet and pay for a replacement tyre.  Running indefinitely on a temporary repair, especially if it’s not even been done with a mushroom shaped plug, or using unofficial (and maybe cowboy) repairers of a motorcycle tyre can be suicidal folly.

Don’t neglect to take out insurance for a breakdown recovery service if you ride a GoldWing, especially for touring abroad.  The standard charge for recovery off a UK Motorway and only as far as the next exit, if you aren’t covered, is £150.

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