| Author | Message | ||
     Whitey |
Hello, can anyone out there lmk what valve stems they use in their PM wheels, i.e steel stems or rubber type. Does anyone know which type are fitted at point of sale. Thanks | ||
| Britchri10 |
No idea what type/specifics but my X1 PM wheels have rubber stems. I looked at them but they have no obvious makers marks. Chris C | ||
| Mmcustoms |
I used the short rubber ones for car rims (Message edited by mmcustoms on May 16, 2011) | ||
| Buell_lee |
They are just standard car type rubber stems | ||
| Whitey |
This is a warning for any one running PM's with rubber stems, do not use any of the custom style valve caps such as trik topz or similar i.e. dice etc. This appears to have caused a total valve failure on the rear wheel of my S3 this Friday 13th LOL, luckily managed to keep the bike upright but Shytt the life out of me with a complete deflation of the tyre in highway situation in heavy traffic, went from outside lane to inner lane  when recovery checked the tyre, I had not picked up a nail or screw, it was the valve stem which had split. Upon getting home, I checked my S1 also running PM's with rubber stems and trik topz custom valve caps to find the front wheel valve was also split and ready to fail at some point. I assume this has been due to the weight of cap and momentum forces on stem when wheel revolves. Be careful out there (Message edited by whitey on May 16, 2011) | ||
| Leftcoastal |
The S2 PM's we have for my son's project XL has the rubber automotive type stems. No fancy caps - Thanks Whitey for the info - glad you came out of that one intact. | ||
| Preybird1 |
You must consider 3 things with rubber stems. 1. the age of the stem?....Rubber life is down to 6 yrs of service now. (If you are lucky) 2. And what caps you use...Stupid ones like skulls, dice, fake bullets can accelerate the wear and seize on the stem.(tearing stems off trying to remove caps) 3. What cleaners you are using on the wheel and did you get it on the stem?? Armour all dries tire rubber as do many other products (read the labels). And any time you take the tire off the rim you must ALWAYS put in a new valve stem!! The short automotive ones are perfect and you can get them with a chrome sleeve on it which helps a little and new style chrome plated plastic caps that are 2 time lighter than the old steel and chrome plated ones. This thread should be a warning to us all about valve stems and failures. There was a lot of bad valve stems that got distributed to a lot of tire retailers nationwide. A lot of discount tire stores ended up with most. But there were some that were never checked for the recalled stems until failure. I cannot for sure be able to tell if any got into motorcycle shops......But i am betting money that quite a few did. Valve stems are mostly Chinese now and be of poor quality. And can purchased in bulk for little money. I am not sure if you could use a bolt on brass valve stem. Let me go check. | ||
| Preybird1 |
here is what comes with the wheel assembly. I say assembly because the wheel comes with the wheel bearings installed and the valve stem installed also. Here is a pics of a brand new wheel assembly.    This is a small brass stem it is only 1" in length. | ||
| Preybird1 |
When i measured the amount of space for a bolt on style stem there is enough to use a bolt on one. I will bring a few styles home from work and see which ones work best for the pm wheels. I will get some chrome bolt on stems as they look far better on a PM wheel than an ugly brass one does. Edit: There are some flush mount bolt on chrome ones that gorilla brand makes and they are small. I can get these at cost from my work. I will find out cost for them if anyone is interested? (Message edited by preybird1 on May 16, 2011) | ||
| Whitey |
Thanks for all the feedback, The stems I had were fitted fairly recently to both bikes by a very well respected Buell shop here, so I have NO ISSUE with the stem type, age or fitment. My warning to others is do not do as I did which was fit the fancy trik topz, smiley faces or other types which appear to be popular in the custom bike world right now, as these will IMHO and that of others who I have spoken to a my local tyre shop cause the valve to fail due to the cap design and stresses it puts on the rubber stem at high speed . I intend to contact the maker of these caps for their opinion on this and suggest perhaps a need to put a warning on their merchandise in future when using with rubber stems. Steel stem like fitted to OEM 3 spokes would be fine, no potential to flex the stem when rotating. PM appears to changed over to steel stems although their tech person appeared vague when questioned, so still unsure if this is the case.  | ||
| Court |
I'm thinking this is the reason that racing organizations require steel caps. Valve Stem Caps Description: * Polished stainless steel * Designed for high temperature conditions such as road racing * Stainless steel high temp caps (#caps-ss)-----$2.29 each (pictured on right) * Black plastic valve stem caps (#cap-blk)-----$0.25 each (pictured on left) * Metal chrome valve stem caps (#ET-59-6947)-----$4.99 pair (not pictured) SOURCE: http://www.heeters.com/tires.shtml | ||
| Court |
Typical Racing Spec . . .
Source: http://www.marrc.org/html_docs/rrs.bikeprep.html | ||
| Devil_car |
I had a valve stem fail on my rear PM wheel, as well, but I never used any special valve stem caps. The valve stem was only 1 year old, and lucky for me, I found it while washing the bike rather than riding it. Like Preybird mentioned, there was a bad batch of valve stems that were distributed; however, I'm definitely not saying that the large decorative valve stem caps can't increase the possibility of a failure. As far as the metal bolt on valve stems go, I ran one on my front PM, but I'm not sure that there is room on the rear PM to install one. Let us know Preybird if you are successful! | ||
| Skntpig |
I have a metal stem on the rear. Mine is close but fits ok. Sorry no pics. | ||
| Preybird1 |
sorry about the slow response here on my end. Here is a 1" metal bolt on valve stem mounted on the wheel.   Its a perfect fit. and the chrome washer over the rubber looks sharp. The picture does not do it justice. |
