with great affection for hillbillys, seeing if i can reboot this thread on the question of cold weather compounds?
i have a standard pale of snot (can't remember the brand but it is unmistakable and umistakeably water based, i.e. frozen solid, when winter comes to my unheated garage. that's a problem that i meant to fix 20 years ago but got involved in fighting with the government instead and my infrastructure suffered for it.
I prefer the consistency as it both lubricates but assisting in bead setting on difficult tires. regardless of additional straps, bike tire tubes, etc. liberal application of this compound of which the clean excess can be recovered helps hold the air just to enough pressure to pop the bead on in many cases.
I'm looking for a freeze tolerant equivalent. My first suspicion might have been a
silicone based lubricrant of the sort i use for sink o-rings and all kinds of plastic, rubber auto parts and as dielectric corrosion reistance on low voltage electrical connects so I sure wouldn't mind having 30 lbs of this stuff but: at least at first blush that's going on half a grand for big bucket. I'm looking for maybe an order of magnitude cost reduction or at least splitting the difference.
I notice several products no one seems to mention that are specifically formulated to protect against rim rust (vs. rust inhibitors added) of which one is "freylube" (not mentioned in this thread but
in an earlier one from 2016). appears there is a similar Xtra product actually called "no rim rust". These designations suggest to me that they are not water based nor particularly hygroscopic which is advantageous as to both cold weather and to rim health but I wonder about how close they are to the snot like quality that helps make beads so well. On the surface of things they don't seem to be significantly more expensive than more apparently water based products.
also mentioned often is ruglyde and I can't seem to figure out quite where this falls in the spectrum of chemistry and goopacity.
There is also an Xtra product called "Europaste" and I can't really find a good comparison of ingredients/base to help me understand where this falls in the spectrum in so far is lubricity, and quantities for bead setting, etc. and they don't seem to let on how it compares to their own "no rim rust" product although I intend to call and ask tomorrow.
Murphys looks good for bead setting although some have said they don't prefer it although not sure why. I'm guessing because they speak about "vegetable-based" this is a vegetable oil product (which, for all i know may be similar to the no rim rust style but i'm not sure). Nonetheless it speaks about diluting it with water so however it is compounded it appears to be accepting of water so not sure whether there is some in the formula and how it would perform in the cold.
And for those concerned on this chain concerned about the corrosive problems with dish soap (which is otherwise a simple and readily available lubricant), what about baby shampoo? My understanding is the corrosive properties of many household soaps are just what is mitigated in order to make soaps that don't irritate the eyes.
Think that hits more or less all the questions for boxing day (got my wife some new 5.00-10 tires for the 89 daihatsu dump which has cracked sidewalls and needs air every day and had some trouble finding those tires. These are nominally the right tires, but just looking at them i can see they flex in away from the tread and are going to give me a hard time with the bead seating so i'm hoping a few garage heads are hanging near the hearth today and might have something to say so I can order some of this and get her tires mounted during the 12 days of christmas (then it still counts).
all I can say if you made it this far, is merry christmas and hope to hear from you.
thanks,
brian