valve stem leaking

[kirkp]

Thought I'd bring up something that happened last week to see if anyone has experienced it before.

Coming back from a trip to SW Missouri and as I always do, I checked the tire pressures. I'm somewhat fanatic about tire pressures after my "blowout" last year. I had bolt in metal valve stems installed in anticipation of getting a TPMS.

Anyway when I removed the valve stem caps on the front side I noticed considerable air escaping. Hurried up and brought them up to pressure and put the caps back on. Note that 7 days prior when I aired the tires before leaving I didn't have this problem. The other 3 tires didn't exhibit this leak. Drove to a tire shop and when checked, the core had unscrewed. Checked all the other tires and they were loose but not enough for rapid air loss although they were probably leaking slowly. The guy at the station said he thought it had to do with the expansion and contraction of the metal valve stem which allowed the core to loosen. Was the most plausible explanation but hey, what do I know.

Anyone experienced this?

Kirk

[007matman]

Nope. Never heard of it.

[Mowgli64]

I would guess that they may not have been tight enough from the start. I have never had that problem before.

[Thurman]

Somewhat the same situation: I checked the tire pressure while my TT was in the back yard then brought the TT up into the driveway to prepare for leaving. The next morning I had a flat tire, one that I just checked the afternoon before. I removed the tire and want to my local tire shop. They could find nothing wrong with the tire but the tech said that he "thought" the valve stem was a bit loose so he tightened it. I went to lunch, came back and the tire was fine. The tech, whom I know, told me that he would recommend replacing the rubber valve stems with the metal valve stems. After that trip I took two tires at the time to have the metal valve stems put in and did all four tires the same day. Since then I have twice found two different tires with extremely low pressure after they had been sitting in the back yard for a couple of weeks. I removed each valve stem, one at the time, cleaned them good and placed just a very small drop of blue Loctite on the threads of the valve stem allowing it to air dry for maybe five minutes. An old tire mounting trick. I have not had any problems with tire pressures dropping while in the back yard since. I believe that the valve stems were working loose while going down the road.