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How do you know how much latex is left inside your tires? Is there a way to add anti-puncture liquid without clogging the valve? Today we’ll learn how to make the ultimate at home syringe for Tubeless tires.

Required:

A syringe
A Bic pen (better if empty)
A 2.8mm drill bit
Shifter cable

The syringe must have the type of smaller tip which can support a needle. The ideal capacity is at least 60cc(the standard volume of latex in a 27.5” tire), a bigger capacity is better for plus-size or fat bike tires. The good part of these syringes is that they have an eccentric tip, which prevents the obstruction between the spokes while inserting the tube into the valve.

First, carefully take off the needle since it’s not needed.

Take the 2.8mm drill bit. Bic ink tube diameter is 3mm, so the 0.2mm margin allows a still fixation of the tube on the syringe without any glue.

Widen the inner hole of the tip of the syringe with the drill. Just remove a few tenths using a medium-high rotation speed.

Delicately take the ink tube out of the pen with a pair of pliers. The rest of the pen can be thrown away since it’s not needed.

With an old shifter cable and some hot water, clean the remaining ink from the tube. It is easier to use an empty pen.

Here’s our clean tube.

Now insert the tube into the syringe tip as deeply as possible.

The syringe is ready!

How to use it

This syringe is unique because of its really small tube.

With only 3mm of diameter it can pass through a standard Tubeless valve. This enables it to:

extract the liquid that is inside the tire to see how much is still left.
Inject sealant easily, without dirtying the inner part of the valve.

Let’s see it at work!

Put the bike on the stand, place the valve in the 6 o’clock position and wait for the liquid to flow down (approx. 5 minutes).

Remove the air from the tire.

Unscrew the valve core using the specific tool…

…and remove it.

Insert the syringe tube into the valve until it touches the tire.

Extract all the sealant from the tire.

In this case, no re-fill is needed, since there are still 55cc left out of 60.

Last but not least, rinse carefully with water to get all of the latex out of the syringe to avoid the clogging of the ink cartridge tube. Now let’s inflate the tire.

A big thanks for this very useful invention (which we use every day in the Bike Lab workshop) to Francesco Ricco, our trustworthy team mechanic who had this eureka moment! Awesome, Frazzo!

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