Repairing a Punctured Tire

By Mark J. Donovan

This past weekend my son reported that the previous day he noticed that there was a warning light on in the car. After going out to check we quickly discovered that the front passenger side tire was flatter than a pancake.

After swapping out the flat tire with the spare tire and seeing there was a nail hole in the tire, I ran down to the local garage. Unfortunately it was closed for the day. So, with little other choice, I ran over to a hardware store and picked up one of those $5 kits for repairing a punctured tire.

Suffice it to say, within 5 minutes I had repaired the flat tire and within 30 minutes I was back home with the tire reinstalled on the car.

The tire repair kit consisted of two tools. One basically was a threaded reamer that you slid into the hole and pushed and rotated a few times in the nail hole. The second tool was for installing a rubber plug. After reaming out the nail hole, all I needed to do was insert the plug into the end of the other tool, apply some adhesive glue to the rubber plug that came with the kit, and push the tool with the plug attached to it into the tire. After sinking the plug into the tire, I quickly pulled the tool out of the nail hole, leaving the plug in place.

The plug should be placed into the tire about 2/3rds of the length of the folded plug.

After repairing the punctured tire, I immediately filled it up with air and it was ready to reinstall on the car.

So with my new found skill, the next time I have a flat tire I plan to skip the garage.