How do I store tires/tyres for a very long time???

[bikemaniac]

I have some new, unused tires which recently went out of production.
Because they are so damn good I want to store them so that I can use them in future (assume I want to store them for 10-20 years).

The problem with rubber seems to be the fact that the softening agent evaporates with time and makes the tire more hard and brittle. So how can I prevent that from happening?

So far I have heard about the following solutions:

1. Put each tire in a polyethylene plastic bag and weld it so it becomes air tight. Personally I know that polyethylene is not 100% air tight itself as it lets air diffuse through the material very slowly with time. The reason for this solution is to stop the evaporation of
softening agent so one gets an over saturated atmosphere within the bag blocking for further evaporation. I don't know, but introducing a vacuum in the bag might accelerate the evaporation and an over pressure might maybe decelerate the evaporation. Any explanations?

2. Put all the tires in a box filled with talcum.

3. Coat every tire with silicone (using a silicone spray) and let them hang from the ceiling fixed at only two points keeping the tire completely circular.

Of course, all rubber should be stored cool, dry and dark (preferably in a basement).

Anyone with hands-on suggestions, experience etc etc??

regards lucas

PS: Suggestions using liquid nitrogen does not apply

 

[Rogerio1]

I would go for the vacuum-packing, hanging in the dark solution. You might not be able to counter all the ageing factors, so concentrate on the ones you can:
Tyres become brittle because of atmospheric attack by ozone, oxygen and even sulfides. Light is also bad, specially UV. Moisture or water vapor can damage some of the chemical components as well. Keeping cool and hanging or changing the position once in a while will reduce deformation set.
BTW, one would expect the industry to be producing better tyres in10-20 yrs.!

Regards,
Giacaglia

 

[daveshoes]

If you bag the tires, use mylar (polyethylene terephthalate, PETE) bags. They are much more gas-tight than polyethylene. This is why carbonate soda bottles are made from PETE plastic.

David

 

[ElastomerXpert]

The bad news is that no matter what you do (short of freezing in liquid nitrogen) the tire compound will age over time just through molecular rearrangements. However, this is minor compared to oxidation/ozonolysis/heat aging, so the sealed and double wrapped bag in a relatively cool and dark storage facility will buy you a lot of time. I have examined 9 year old tires left out in the sun and weather in Florida and they were harder than when new, undoubtedly had less traction and maneuverability, but were still pretty driveable. My best guess is the very careful storage you're considering will leave those tires reasonably close to new for ten years. You could really go nuts and make a dispersion of antidegradant chemicals in petroleum jelly and wipe a thin coat of that over the whole tire, and that would make things a big notch better, but I'm not sure it'd be worth it. Good luck.

R J Del Vecchio
Technical Consulting Services
(consultant in Applied Rubber Technology)

 

[wilsmith23]

I am involved in oval track racing and am looking for tire softeners to take our normal durometer readings of mid 70s down to the mid 30s. There are many "tire softeners" on the market which will take the readings down in the mid 50s with a couple of applications, i.e. wrapping a saturated rag around the tire, then wrapping the rag and tire with a saran-wrap like elastic cover to slow evaporation, waiting until evaporation has occured, normally about 48 hrs, then removing all. Many genereral solvents available make some difference to the tires, maybe more difference to the number of cancerous cells present in your body. But only a few, which are trade secrets to the "Big-Dogs" of the sport are resulting in the numbers racers desire. Any suggestions appreciated.

Wil

 

[rhodie]

If the tires were that good, why did they go out of production?

 

[delazap]

we are storing rubber batch production samples for
prolongued periods. Besides the commonly known procedures
for storing rubber ( cool-dark-away from uv sources)
it should be stored in an oxygene reduced atmosphere.
For this purpose we use commercially available oxygen
absorbants ( in small bags including oxygen indicator
tabs) and pack the samples in aluminium/pe sandwich foil.
These bags produce some humidity, so we add some bags
with silicia gel.
For tyres I would use parafin for additional protection
of the side walls to prevent drying out.

Delazap