EbikeSchool.com

Everything you need to know about electric bicycles, all in one place!

  • Home
  • About
  • Shop
    • 18650 cells
    • BMSs
    • Chargers
    • Accessories
  • Discover
    • Learning Center
    • How To’s
    • Reviews
    • News
    • Friendly Local E-bike Shops

How To Add Tire Sealant

joe's tire sealant

If you’ve been looking around EbikeSchool.com for long, you’ll see that I’ve written a lot about flat tires. Flats are the easiest way to ruin your day on an electric bicycle, so I’m all about trying to minimize my chance for flat tires. I’ve written before about tips for avoiding flat tires, one of which includes using a tire sealant. I’ve also reviewed three different tire and tube sealants. Today though I’m going to take it one step further and show you how to add tire sealant to your bicycle tires.

My favorite sealant is Joe’s Super Sealant, though these steps will all work for any sealant you want to use. To add tire sealant to your inner tubes you’re going to a few things prepared in advance:

  • Your tire sealant of choice
  • A Schrader valve removal tool
  • Easy access to your valve (I like to remove the tube)
  • A rag for cleanup (things can get messy quickly)
  • Bicycle tire levers (optional – only if you want to remove the tube)

Step one: Access your valve

joe's tire sealant

I prefer to pop the tire off one side of the rim and pull the tube out enough to get at the valve. This just makes it easier for me to manipulate the valve and end up spilling less of the sealant. This is especially helpful when you are working on a small wheel, 20″ or smaller, because the short, crowded spokes don’t give you a lot of wiggle room.

Removing the tube isn’t always necessary though. You can leave your tire on if you’d like. It’s really just a matter of personal preference. Some tire sealants come with a flexible straw or rubber hose that you can use instead of putting the hard plastic spout directly into the valve. Green Slime is one of those sealants that usually has a tube included. For those sealants I leave the tire on since the plastic tube gives me all the flexibility I need.

Step two: remove the valve core

tire sealant 3

To remove the valve core you’ll need a schrader valve tool like mine above. Green Slime kits usually have the tool molded into the black cap on the tube. For most other sealants you’re on your own to provide the tool. Remove the dust cap from the valve and insert the valve tool into the end of the valve. Slowly turn the tool until you feel the teeth slip into the recesses in the valve core. Now turn the tool counter-clockwise until the valve core slides free of the internal threads in the valve stem.

joe's tire sealant

Step three: add tire sealant

This part is pretty straightforward. Now you simply squeeze your tire sealant into the empty valve stem. A few tricks I’ve learned along the years have made this process easier and less messy:

  • Removing the tube from the tire, or doing this step before you install a new tube, means you can hold the valve in your hand and ensure a good seal during filling. This keeps any tire sealant from leaking out the sides.
  • If you do this step while the tube is in a wheel and installed in a bicycle, rotate the wheel so the valve isn’t on the very bottom. Even just rotating the wheel so the valve is a few inches to the right or left of the bottom can help. The issue is that the weight of the bike can compress the tube and cause a blockage. Worst case scenario with a blockage: the tire sealant shoots back out and covers you in gluey mess.
  • Save the rubber hose from a tire sealant such as Green Slime to use in the future with any other sealant. In my set of tools I keep a piece of rubber hose just large enough to slip over the end of the valve stem.
  • Once you get the tire sealant flowing, don’t stop until you’re done. Glue-type sealants such as Joe’s and Stan’s can actually seal while still in the nozzle on occasion. This can make for an annoying stop-and-go filling experience as you keep pausing to open up the hole again. Avoid this by keep filling once you’ve got the flow going.
  • Keep a rag around and don’t do this indoors unless you’ve laid down a towel or newspaper first. Things can get messy…

joe's tire sealant

Step four: close everything back up

Once you’ve got all your tire sealant in the tube, go ahead and wipe up any spills and replace the valve core. Just slide the valve core back inside the valve stem and then tighten it with the valve tool by turning clockwise. You don’t need to go all muscle-man on it, just a nice snug fit will do.

joe's tire sealant

And that’s it! Adding tire sealant is a really simple way to give yourself the best chance of avoiding a flat tire. It only takes a couple of minutes to install the sealant and the hours on the side of the road it will save you are definitely worth it!

Related posts:

  1. Review: Anti-Flat Bicycle Tire Sealants
  2. How To Fix A Flat Tire On An Ebike
  3. Avoid Flat Tires With These Six Tips
  4. Choosing The Right Tire For Your Electric Bicycle

About Micah

Micah is a mechanical engineer, tinkerer and husband. He's spent the better part of a decade working in the electric bicycle industry, and is the author of The Ultimate DIY Ebike Guide. Micah can usually be found riding his electric bicycles around Florida, Tel Aviv, and anywhere else his ebikes wind up.

Helpful links

Here a few topics and sources that you might find helpful:
How to build a battery
Inexpensive ebike batteries
Endless Sphere ebike forums
Cheapest 8fun mid-drive source
Ebike School Youtube Channel

My Current Favorite Battery Source

My favorite source for batteries right now is Battery Hookup. They’ve also generously offered all of my readers a 5% discount if you use the discount code EBIKE.

This site is 100% free, so how do I support it?

All the help and knowledge I've provided here on EbikeSchool.com is 100% free If you want to support this site and help me keep it free, consider checking out my ebook and video course on building ebikes.

Ebikeschool.com has a lot of great info, but I've spent countless hours putting even more info, examples, how to's, reviews, maintenance steps and buying guides into my book and video course. They are some of the most fact-dense and info-rich ebike resources available today. So check them out to see if they can help you with your own ebike!

Learn more here.

If you want to learn more in-depth about building your own lithium battery, you'll want to check out my book "DIY Lithium Batteries: How To Build Your Own Battery Packs" which is an Amazon #1 Bestseller in multiple categories!
You can get it here on Amazon.

And if you don't want to purchase my book (or you already have a lot of ebike knowledge), you can still support this site by simply clicking on this link before you shop on Aliexpress. Basically, that's an affiliate link that shows Aliexpress that you came to them via my site. It doesn't effect you at all, but if you make a purchase, this site will get a small percentage of the profit that Aliexpress makes. It's a simple way to help support this site so I can pay the hosting and keep providing more free info (and to keep this site free of annoying ads). I have some of those affiliate links on a limited number of articles on my site. When I personally buy and test products that I find to be a combination of great quality and great prices, like these batteries, for example, I like to share them through those affiliate links. Again, it costs you nothing, but it allows me to keep cranking out more info and content for you guys!

Thanks for understanding!










Privacy Policy · Terms & Conditions · Contact

Copyright © 2025 · Powered by electrons, lots and lots of electrons

Copyright © 2025 · Parallax Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Cleantalk Pixel