tire boot

I have never had a boot put in a tire. Having said that, I have a tire that has a split on the side and is starting to bulge out. Can a boot be used to save replacing this tire or do I bite the bullet and find another tire? The tire is a36 inch so they are hard to find.

I had a boot put in the sidewall of a 12-24 which got punctured by a sapling stump 2 years ago.
No fluid in tire.
Looks fine, works OK.

Boots on sidewalls are marginal at best. If you are working the tractor,replace the tire as the boot will fail. If you're just 'poopin' around the yard,or paradeing,you can get by. Be sure to keep the air pressure up to minimize tire flex.I booted a sidewall on my baler tractor(826IH). After 3 failures in 2 years,I bought a new tire.

See if you can find a place that will vulcanize it in for you. Much better than just sticking an old fasion type of boot in.

As Jeffcat stated, get it vulcanized in and it will be as good as new, it will last as well. Our tire shop where I live sends them out to be done..had a new truck tire sidewall vulcanized and it came back looking like new, the outside wasn't quite as smooth as the rest of the tire but it looked good and performed well..was $30 to save a $200 + tire.

I have installed boots in a good many tires and if done right they will let you get a number of years out of them that you other wise would not. Cleaning and gluing them correctly and all goes a long ways in doing it. Plus if you can also add a tire liner that helps a whole lot to help the boot do its job. I bet I have at least 3 tractor tires on the place with boots in them and they have been in them for years

Just don't put too much air in too quick. I had to have one booted on Christmas Eve on a loader tractor three years ago. A 16.9 30,loaded. Brian was in kind of a hurry and inflated it all the way before the rubber cement had a chance to set up. It spread about an inch. I replaced it earlier this summer when another crack started to open up to where I could see the tube.

A lot depends on how much weight you'll put on the tire and how hard you plan to pull it.

I have several tractors with booted tires and so far so good..
They are not tractors that I use in the field..One was a 12x38
Wards Power Trac tire with a split on the side...I had it vulcanized
too and its hard to see where they did it..

My 35 A with 36" rears has a boot that was put in somewhere around 1950 when dad bought the tractor. He said the tires were new when he bought the tractor in 1950 so it might have been a repaired blem. The tire has bulged where the boot is ever since and hasn't blown out yet. The tires still have somewhere around 75%-80% tread and are remarkably good but the tractor has been shedded for 75%-80% of the time since dad bought it.

A lot depends on the tire. Old, brittle or getting rotten: boot will be of little benefit. If tire is still sound: a boot in sidewall will work. Just don't put tire in position to where it has to squat and flex a lot. Can stand a little if properly installed, just don't overdo it.

The problem with boots faleing is that too small of a boot was used. They say a 4x6 boot is good for a 2" long crack, NO you need a 6x8 boot minimum and better is that 6x8 with an 8x10 overlayed the smaller one. A boot has about half the thickness of the tire so being that much weeker it is bound to fail unless you double it with a boot that is twice as big as recemonded for that size hole.

I have a boot covering up a three sided cut in a front tire and a boot in the side wall on the rear. The big truck/Ag tire dealer sent my rear tire off for a section repair, and four weeks later it came back as unrepairable. I bought the biggest boot I could find and it has held for 6 rears,the one on the front will let go some day but the rear will last as long as the tractor runs. 656U Hydro with FEL.

Years ago we had 4"cut in side wall of tractor tire. We carriage bolted a patch with plate steel inside and out side with nuts on outside. We then put a glued boot over inside steel patch and lasted for over 6 years.

A friend who has many old Farmalls has at least two that have patches on the sidewalls held on by carriage bolts.

I ran a stob through the tread-sidewall on a 20.8x38 brand new dual Firestone radial tire in the spring of 1992, a boot and new inner tube was installed and is still going strong today, over 4000 hrs later. Brand new tractor also.

A lot depends on the size of the split. If the split runs from Bead to Tread, I'd say FORGET IT, look for a replacement; but if it's a small split it wouldn't hurt to give it a try, especially since this is on a "slow speed" Tractor tire and not on a highway tire.

BUT, back in 1970 on a nearly new 10.00x15 Tubeless, Bias Ply Mud & Snow tire on my '67 4x4 Toyota Landcruiser, I got a 4 inch long rock slice in a sidewall. After thoroughly prepping the inside of the casing, I placed a series of Vulcanizing HOT Patches cross-wise over the slice, slightly overlapping the sides of each successive patch. Next, after prepping the backs of the patches, I glued on a 12x12 "Self-Vulcanizing" Boot, and after allowing it to cure, I installed a heavy duty truck tube of the appropriate size. When properly inflated, the rock slice spread slightly and was very noticeable, so I over-inflated the tire by 20 PSI and applied multiple layers of Black "Liquid Rubber" in the slice, allowing a thorough cure between each application until the rock slice was filled. I reduced the tire pressure to normal and buffed off the excess. Because of the imbalance, this tire always remained on one side or the other of the Rear Axle, other tires were rotated normally. - < NOTE: This was on a Highway tire at an extremely rural, remote, mountain-top Mining Claim, where the NEAREST Town (population about 400) was over 70 miles away. - PS: I got over 60,000 miles on that set of tires.> ..

Doc