Pinhole Puncture Repair Guide
For When Things Go Wrong (And They Will)
For Everyone
Updated:
Your tire is deflating slowly, perhaps over a day or more, or you can see something lodged in the tire and you want to temporarily repair the hole. You're in the right place.
If you need to change your wheel and don't know how, you need this post, instead.
Pinhole Puncture
If you don't have all the necessary tools with you to change a wheel, at least you definitely have your temporary puncture repair kit.
Temporary puncture repair kit.
Grand! Then here's how to use it:
1. Locate the pinhole puncture. It might be a nail or similar object, and it may still be stuck in the tire, or the hole may just be very small and leaking slowly. In any case, you just need to roll forward until the offending hole is accessible. Turn the wheel to give yourself space to get to it.
2. If there is still an object in the tire, first let out all the air by removing the dust cap from the wheel's air valve and pressing on the center pin with anything that will fit there. You don't want to attempt to remove a sharp object manually while the tire still has pressure, or there's a good chance it will hit you with a huge amount of force, and you don't need that in your day.
3. Using your pliers, remove the object and then get your puncture repair kit out.
Select the spiral tool and push it into the puncture hole. Push and pull a few times to make the hole nice and circular.
4. Thread one of the gummy things through the gap in the other tool until it's approximately in the middle, and then push the sharp end of the tool through the puncture hole. This is supposed to be a tight fit, so you may have to apply a fair amount of pressure. So much so, that the gummy thing breaks.
5. When the gummy thing breaks, pull the needle tool out and cut the protruding gummy bits off with your wire cutters.
6. Pump up the tire with your foot pump or at a gas station, if you were able to get to one. The tire should stay inflated and the pressure should force the gummy stuff to seal the hole tightly.
Note that this is a temporary fix designed to get you home. Don't just carry on your journey of a thousand miles without having the puncture properly repaired (it's pretty cheap at a tire place).