Sick of always having to add air to your snow blower, lawn tractor, or wheelbarrow wheels? Here is a quick, easy, and inexpensive fix. Simply fill the tire with expanding foam.
I tried this on a snow blower and it worked like a charm. First, remove the guts from the valve stem. Take the weight off of the tire so you can freely spin it. With the valve stem at the bottom of the wheel (6 o’clock), drill two 1/4″ holes in the tire at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock. The holes should be big enough to push the tube from the expanding foam through.
With the valve stem at 6 o’clock, add foam through the drilled hole at 3 o’clock until you can just start to see it escaping from the valve stem. Spin the wheel so that the valve stem is now at the top of the wheel (12 o’clock) and add foam through the other drilled hole until you see foam just starting to escape from the other drilled hole.
Make sure you put some newspaper under the wheel as some excess foam will escape. Keep the weight off the tire and allow foam to cure 24 hours. I used the Great Stuff foam in the red can (minimally expanding because it’s denser stuff) and a 12 oz can will do a typical wheelbarrow, snow blower, or front lawn tractor wheel. For a larger rear lawn tractor wheel use a 16 oz can.
Yes, you could also add a tube, but these tires are usually a pain to break the bead on and there is always the chance that you’ll pinch the tube in the process. Even a cheap tube is about $10 or more and a 12 oz can of expanding foam is about $3 and you don’t even need to take the tire/rim off. In some cases you can’t get the rim off so this is perfect for those cases.