MTFCA Forum

Can anyone share their experiences good and bad with the brass replacement stems available from Lang's and others? Specifically, the type that has to be "hot vulcanized" to the tube.

I recently had a flat caused by a cut or tear in the side of the rubber stem on a relatively new Hartford tube and I hate to throw it away - especially since I'd previously filled it with 6 ounces of balancing beads.

My tire guy says it might have been caused by the inner edge of the tire casing rubbing the rubber stem so we're going to pull all the tires and inspect for similar damage. I would think that brass stems would hold up better in such cases.

Thanks for the help!

Well, I can tell you about the original style. I just started cutting off the rubber factory stems and installing vintage Schrader type 777 stem assemblies and caps. A lot of fun.

I tried to find some originals but so far no luck. With the swap meets cancelled there aren't many places to look.

The new ones available have an inferior bridge washer so I've avoided them. The ones that must be vulcanized on seemed like they might be a good alternative IF they work.

I had a decent tube that the metal stem pulled out of. I asked around here and checked with a tire shop and the replacement stems have to be hot vulcanized in, which I have no idea how to do. The tire shop said it takes a $10,000 machine so I ordered a new tube with a rubber stem.

With the swap meets cancelled there aren't many places to look.

That's a problem. If you can find them, old metal stems are the way to go. They don't have to be vulcanized.

http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG110.html

I started collecting original metal stems along time ago when no one was interested in them. I've converted most of my cars to the original style valves when they need it. I'm not going to pull out a tube just to put the correct one in. What irritates me is the big guys like Coker don't seem to be interested in having the originals made. If the Model A guys can do it, so can the T guys! The vulcanized stems are 100% incorrect, and way to heavy. The O.D. of them is even incorrect, and although they do use a rim nut, it is not the same as what Ford used.