So I sourced a nice set of 30-40% tires, Michelin XTLA's maybe decent shape, one plug/patch repair on one tire, one minor sidewall cut. There were some dry crack between the tread blocks, we haven't mounted them yet but have it scheduled in, so in the meantime we gave them a bath and scrub, let them air dry a few days and well, there is a bit of alligator cracking between the tread blocks. I figure anything that lets dirt/air/trash into the tire tread is somewhat bad so I started an experiment. Thinned out some plasti-dip and brushed it into the cracks, the first few coats were about a minute apart, just brush along the tread groove, do four segments then repeat, then roll the tire a bit. It didn't take too long, would be easier if mounted. My thoughts are that the plasti-dip is a bit softer than the tire rubber so it should flex in the grooves nicely, it does stick like crazy to fingers and to the rubber tire. Thinning was 1:1 for the primer coat using half and half MEK and Lacquer thinner. I know the cracks will telegraph through and I'm okay with that, It'll take one more coat and then it should look pretty nice. I should have taken a before picture but we all know what dry tires look like. Part of the exercise is that some of the folks around the club have lots of vocal opinions and that they'll be calling everyone to complain that our tires are cracked and gonna explode, not understanding that there's another inch of tire beneath the cracks, and stuff that looks nice is in line with keeping every thing clean and painted, washed and well greased. There used to be a tire dressing that wasn't armor all but was a brushed on rubber we used on the firetrucks before parade day, I'm guessing its gone cause someone painted a dried out tire and sold it before it exploded and crashed through an orphanage. First coat, almost no pinholes left
Don't know if they were the original 1987 tires on my backhoe but they looked kind of like that. They had slow leaks. I sprayed them with soapy water and the whole sidewalls foamed up ! Hope your treatment helps.
Well yeah, Pixie, you're in a different boat, I've seen that where the liner fails and well, you end up with a big rubber air filter. Tube em till they die, this is just cosmetic, no air loss and the sidewalls look great, just the inter tread spots.
I had a split in a farm rear for years, should have done something similar back then. Enough grit got in there over the years that the tube finally failed there last December. Seeing calcium running out of your tire makes for a bad day. I broke it down, bought a new tube, a 12 x 15 inside patch from Gemplers, and put it back together. On the outside I filled the split with Blackjack roofing cement, Then topped it off with that glue called 'Goop' Just reloaded it [with Rimguard] this time. 1975 tire, probably outlast me.
Gemplers has some great stuff for certain! hopefully it all holds up well! Once the tires are mounted, I'm going to give them another coat just to smooth them out a bit.
I know this is a very old thread - but was wondering how this worked out?