New tires and tubes

[Redlight]

Greetings,
I have purchased new tires and tubes from Summit Racing to install on my M-151 before the Great Smoky Mt. Convoy. The garage is now suggesting flaps for the rims before mounting the tube and tires. Does anyone have takeouts that I can buy cheaply. My trip starts for me just after Labor Day so I still have some time to get the flaps and mount the tires. My rims have three sets of rivets in the center of the rim ,will they rip or tear the tube if I do not use a flap? While buying the tires and tubes was easy from Summit, I had to search to find a garage who would mount the tires. Most said as I did not buy the tires from them, they would not mount the new tires. They would mount used tires but not new ones. They all said it was a question of liability. Very frustrating
Thanks in advance.
Bruce(Redlight)

[m3a1]

Flaps shouldn't cost you a lot but I suppose you've investigated that already. I haven't any for you but they are necessary and serve to isolate the tube from chafing on the rim as the tire deforms when it rolls onto the pavement. They also serve to fill the space in the center of the rim, thereby making the interior of the tire and wheel conform to the general shape of the tube, rather than the other way around.

Safety first!

Cheers,
TJ

[Flyingvan911]

I've taken several Mutt tires and rims apart. They didn't have flaps. I'll have to get some.

[SturmTyger380]

I have changed a number of M151 tires with tubes and none of them had flaps. Most of these were I am sure tires that were had been mounted by the military. Any time I change tires I clean and sometimes blast the rims and paint them so they are really smooth inside.

Alan

[Fil Bonica]

Flaps are are good but all I have ever done was to make sure the surfaces were clean and smooth with a good coat of paint.

Fil Bonica

[Redlight]

Thanks all, I did find that Coker Tire has flaps and the cost for two including shipping is about $65.00 +/-. I opened my old tires (three) and also did not find any flaps. I did as Fil suggested and smoothed by sanding all of the inner part of the rim. I was very aggressive and made the whole inner section very smooth and then painted it. It should be fine. Time will tell.
Thanks again

[Flyingvan911]

I also blast and repaint my rims. We have a steel shot blaster at work that makes quick work of it.

[Lindsay36551]

A quick extra thing I do is apply a couple layers of guerrilla tape over the rivets!

[rickf]

I don't know about the tape. Over a few years it may come loose and then you have a ball of tape throwing the tire out of balance, and it will move around so there will be no balancing it. They used tubes in civilian tires for many years without flaps and had no problems. Same type of rims.