Tube tire minus the tube ???

[67 455 Bird ragtop]

I have a VERY old set, 10++ years, of M/T Sportsmans I bought when I first started my project. Tires have zero miles but are probably not in any shape to put may miles on them. I plan to eventually replace them with a set of radials before I start driving the car. But for the short term ( Fit checks, moving it around in the garage, to teh paint shop, and things like that) I'd like to use these. My problem is the tubes are shot. I don't want to spend $70-90/tube for a set of tubes. And I don't have $700 for a set of new rear radials right now either. So I pulled the tubes out and put in a set of valve stems and mounted them up. They seem to be holding air ok after a cpl of hours.

Has anyone ever mounted a set of tube tires without the tubes being in them??? If so what were your results???

And like I said I hev no intentions of putting these on the road so don't start ragging me about safety issues. I'm not that stupid to drive these on the road.

[Jim Nilsen]

If you think the tires are not worthy of driving and you aren't worried about them just throw some green slime in them and roll them all diferent directions and they shouldn't leak any more. Sure it's messy but who cares when you don't care about the tires.

[67 455 Bird ragtop]

If you think the tires are not worthy of driving and you aren't worried about them just throw some green slime in them and roll them all diferent directions and they shouldn't leak any more. Sure it's messy but who cares when you don't care about the tires.


That's my backup plan if they do start to leak. But so far so good. Tires are actually close to 20 years old. Pretty hard. No rot. The MOST I would trust driving on them would be around the block .... MAYBE ....

[monteboy84]

I wouldn't even drive around the block on them, but if they're holding air then I don't see where there'd be an issue with having them aired up that way in the shop. If they were a smaller tire size you'd be able to get tubes for $10 or so each...

-matt