There's a valve core in my wheel --I'm loosing my mind

Tech Tech Help
1

Please help! On my rim brake travel bike I use tubes because it’s not used all the often. The cheap TPU tube on the front wheel was leaking because the plastic stem was cracked. When I took the tube out the valve core fell out inside the wheel and now I’m going insane trying to get it out. It’s a 38mm deep hooked carbon rim with an inner width of 19.5mm. The only access it the valve hole. I can shake it down to next to the valve hole but it’s stuck at the edge valley. If I try to guide it to the spoke side hole I fail all the time because that hole seems to be reinforced with a lip around it and gravity exists.

I’ve tried shaking it obsessively but luck hasn’t been on my side.

It isn’t attracted to magnets, at least any I have.

The hole is too small to open and close tweezers.

I’ve tried some sticky putty at the end of a thin screw but it’s not holding it.

I also tried to suck it out with a straw.

Maybe I could try blasting water through it and hope something happens? I cannot live with a rattle in my wheel and don’t want to buy a new one. Any suggestions?

2

Hmmm…If you can see it and touch it with something long and thin, maybe a drop of 5-minute epoxy instead of the putty? Position and wait for cure?

4 Likes
4

Instead of regular tweezers, forceps may work. When closed, they will definitely fit inside the valve hole. Once inserted, you can open them up fully to grab the valve core. You may not be able to pull out the forceps when it’s clamped onto the valve core, but it will at least allow you to reposition it so that it can fall out of the hole on its own. These are available from Amazon and are Geek Warning certified.

IMG_9048
IMG_90481512×2016 931 KB

3 Likes
5

I can feel it but I can’t see it. I think there’s a cosmic anomaly inside the wheel

1 Like
6

Maybe try a sliced straw and turn the wheel 90deg and check if you can see it.

also another person can help because You might need more than 2 hands (and for the nerves)

7

Maybe a vacuum cleaner? Try taping up the valve hole on the spoke side and holding the vacuum cleaner to the other hole.

5 Likes
8

A sliced straw. I’m imagining cutting one so I can try to scoop it into the straw, I’m going to try that.

Or did you mean something else?

9

Magnet? Not sure if the core is steel.

10

If a magnet is not an option, use something sticky like a dab of thick grease on a small pick or ear swab whilst keeping the hole to the bottom, so gravity assists you.

11

Is there a rim tape you can remove? Curious why the valve hole is your only option, unless it’s a rim bed that doesn’t have spoke holes. Rim tape is easy to replace - if it’s driving you bonkers then rip it off!

12

Can you poke something long and thin down through the spoke-side hole in order to help guide it to the rim bed hole?

13

Please let us know how it turns out!

14

Two ideas.

Glue it in place. Shake the rim so that core is next to valve hole and squirt some liquid glue into rim so that it flows to the edge valley where core is hiding.

Take a vacuum cleaner and some very thin plastic hose that can go through the valve hole from the hub side and into the edge valley. Tape the hose to the vacuum cleaner hose and make it airtight. Feed the thin hose into rim from the hub side via valve hose and try to hit the core.

1 Like
15

https://www.amazon.co.uk/flexible-grabber-pickup-tool/s?k=flexible+grabber+pickup+tool

Something like this?

I’ve also heard they’ve been developing grabbers like that based on dead spiders :sweat_smile:

1 Like
16

:person_facepalming: That never occurred to me. Ok, now I’ve got 24 more holes of access which has got to help. Not so far though.

1 Like