Re: Just checked my tyres age !!!!!!!
Posted: 12 Jul 2014, 15:24
Madmoose wrote:My claim to fame is I have a couple of fronts that were made in the former Yugoslavia
Still going strong with no cracks.
But now you know will you be changing them?
kevtherev wrote:I used to make tyres for Goodyear, and was in a research team on this very subject.
Tyres, are made from organic materials and man made (synthetic) materials all of which degrade with time by their very composition.
Steel and rubber do not mix, Rayon, Nylon and rubber do not mix. Yet our tyres are made from these materials.
What holds it all together is a clever use of the vulcanising process with different compound natural rubbers (hard and soft) synthetic rubber (Butyl) and various resins.
All these compounds are designed to carry weight and dissipate heat.
After 7 years the resin has hardened so much that it cannot hold the steel and rubber together in any stressful use.
The rayon carcass of the tyre (Plies) moves about within the rubber coating.
Eventually the strands of rayon split the thin coating of now very brittle rubber and catastophic failure of the sidewall occurs.
Under the tread lurks another time bomb, the steel mesh belt, once coated in natural soft rubber, is now coated in hard rubber which heats up and eventually separates from the tread and underlying carcass, the tread then unravels from the tyre.
sleep well
