Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Hi All (again),

One of the tires on my dad's car has a slow leak. He says the rims are a two piece design and sometimes they leak.

Is this accurate?

If so how does one seal the two piece rim?

If you cannot seal the steel rim then does anyone know what size inner tube to purchase?

MANY THANKS!!!

Bill

Remove it from the car. Put in a big tub of water. Look for air bubbles.

It might be that the center section of the rim is riveted to the ring of the rim. Sometimes air will leak around the rivets if run without inner tubes. Newer rims were welded instead of riveted.

John

As a 1948 model the car should have inner tubes to hold the air and the rim design should be irrelevant. Packard did pioneer tubeless tires and rims as standard equipment, but that came about in 1954, six years after your car was built. If you're running tubeless tires on 1948 rims, leaks could occur where the wheel hub is riveted to the rim. I've seen leaking modern spoked alloy rims sealed with what looked and felt like clear RTV silicone sealant. Another area that could be suspect is around the valve stem hole in the rim. On rims designed for tubes, that hole can be where the rim curves inwards to form the drop center part of the rim. That could make it difficult for the tubeless stems with their relatively thick and wide inner flanges to seal against a surface with that much curvature. As Packard V8 states, your best bet is to water test the tire and rim to see just what's leaking.

As far as what size inner tube to buy, any tire supplier should be able to provide the correct inner tube once they know the size of your tires.

I had tubeless tires on my 1948 Custom 8 for over 25 years.
Not only did they not leak, they rarely ever took air even after sitting all winter.

That's been my experience with my '50 Custom. Sandblasted the wheels, two coats of Por15, a new set of Diamondback WWW tires, stems from NAPA and absolutely no leakage.

I thought it was 1954 that Packard introduced tubeless tires, not 1951, and that it was pretty much an industry-wide changeover. But that not withstanding, prior drop-center wheels (wire wheels excluded) though not designed for tubeless tires will generally be air tight at the rivets or welded seams, but it's a matter of chance and the percentages are very largely, in fact hugely in favor of them being satisfactory at least as far back as 1938. And yes, if you can locate the air leak at the wheel where the rim attaches to the hub, you can use a sealant.

As to tube size, tube sizes are matched to tire sizes though often tubes will have a range of tire sizes for which they are compatible. So just get a tube marked for your tire size.

>Put in a big tub of water. Look for air bubbles.

I put the tire in the tub with me and I can confirm there was a lot of bubbles...not much from the tire though.

Lot of bubbles from the tire/rim or from you?? LOL

Bill; Hope you found a front motor mount. I did not get a response to my PM about it. just wanted to let you know that I have a lot of extra 48 parts left over from my custom and woodie projects, have two complete engines in my toy box. Dell