Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Having ordered my Good Year GT2's the fitters are telling me the wheels should have tubes fitted; they didn't before, shurely they are talking rubbish?
They are adamant the wheels are not designed for tubeless tyres.
Any info anyone?

Cheers
Gasman

Tubeless tyre wheels should have a small bump in the wheel surface inside the tyre just inside the rim. These bumps ensure the tyre bead cannot move inwards under load and the tyre suddenly loose pressure. Wheels without these bumps were designed for tube tyres. If I recall correctly only the S1 to early S3 had tube tyre wheels late S3 and S4 and all plus 2 had wheels suitable for tubeless tyres as original.

Tubeless tyre wheels should be stamped with a "jj" designation eg 13 x 5.5 jj to signify the tubeless "bump" design though I have seen modern wheels that no longer carry the jj designation as no one make tube tyre wheels these days.


How critical the bumps are is debatable. I have seen cars run tubeless tyres on the tube rims for years without problems, just luck I guess.

Rohan

Hi Gasman, just checked mine, and my two spares. The 4 on the car do have tubes in, but the two spares don't, and have stayed up fine. I'm sure my last S3 didn't run tubed, and I never had a problem.....
We are talking about standard perforated knock-on wheels here are we ?
Regards
elans3

My Just 2 has J rated wheels so doesn't need tubes, but the tubeless tires that came on it from the factory had tubes. This was more because the rivets that hold the wheels together leak than to keep the tire on. Now that the wheels have new powdercoat on them I don't have tubes and they hold air great.

So if the wheels are stamped J and you did not need tubes then you can run tubeless.

Rob

My +2S130 (I think you saw it at Stoneleigh) has standard chrome trimed steel wheels and runs without tubes.
Cheers
Tim

Hi everyone,
I believe Rohan is correct. I removed the tubes from my tyres and unfortunately, round a pretty stiff bend, the back tyre went down in a matter of secs.
A tyre fitter asked me who was the idiot who had fitted the new tyres omitting to fit tubes as tubeless wheels didn't exist in the sixties.

Gino - Milan Italy
S3 Elan

I guess tubeless is as tubeless does. I autocrossed my S2 for years - and drove rather aggressively on the road - without tubes. But I did this on +2 wheels, 5 1/2" width. Mayve they were made for tubeless tires.

Art
26/4934

Guys,

Just been out to the garage,

Checked the spare alloy +2 wheels. None of them have any ridges round the inside of any of the rims. I'm sure the wheels on the car are the same.

I got a couple of new Goodyear 165/80s fitted recently and the tyre fitter (who I respect a lot) said that tubes were not necessary and didn't fit any. He had the hell of a job getting the old tyres off the wheel and took a lot of care not to damage the rims when doing so. By the way, when the old tyres came off (they had been fitted before I got the car - Goodyear G800!) no tubes had been fitted.

Regards,

Hamish.

Thanks everyone, I am now tubeless.

Gasman