How To Repair A Flat Tire – Made Easy

How To - Tire Repair With Plug Kit – Made easy with a tie-down strap

This is my first attempt to repair a tire with a patch kit.  After struggling with a few of the steps, I have learned that there are difficult and easy ways to accomplish this.  Since making the video, I have repaired another tire and it was significantly easier.

Tools suggested:

Silver Sharpie or something else that can mark on a tire

Needle nose pliers

Flat head screwdriver

Tie-down strap

Air compressor or tire pump

Steps:

1. Remove tire from vehicle
2. Locate hole
3. Mark the hole with a Sharpie or other appropriate marker
4. Remove the object (nail, screw, whatever) from the tire
   1. Use a screwdriver and needle nose pliers to remove the object
5. Ream the hole with the reaming tool from the patch kit
6. Thread the patch through the repair kit needle
   1. You will most likely need the needle nose pliers for this as well
7. Apply the patch compound to the plug
8. Attempt to push the plug into the hole in the tire
   1. This is where the tie-down strap comes in. Use the strap to force the patch into the tire
   2. You may also need to inflate the tire to get this to fully insert
9. Once the patch has been inserted into the tire 2/3 of the way, pull the tool out, leaving the patch behind
10. Inflate the tire to the correct pressure
11. Test with soapy water, if available, to determine that there is no air coming from the patch

This video shows my first attempt with the tire plug kit. I have not cut out my struggles with this, so anyone without experience can see how difficult this can be. I could have cut right to the part where I figured out how to make it easy, but I feel this video is more informative for beginners as they can see the different ways that did not work.

One of the main challenges with this repair is that the nail punctured directly through a steel belt. After creating this video, the same vehicle that this tire came off of got another flat tire. They were all worn and I was waiting until I could afford a full set. The other tire was quite a bit easier to repair, as the object that punctured it did not go through a steel belt. That one only took about 15 minutes to repair once I got the tire off. That one would have probably been easy enough to repair by hand, but I used the tie-down strap method anyway because it takes most of the work out of it.

I'm sure many people have done this repair before and have had different experiences. Obviously, the more times you use these kits, the better you will get. However, I feel this is informative for people with no experience, and I believe the tie-down strap is extremely helpful. This method makes this repair possible for people with little strength.