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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
I had a valve extension stuck in a deep wheel once. I thought it would be there for life, but I rolled up a piece of paper ( but straw sliced length ways would work) out it in the inner and outer valve holes in the rim and spun the wheel vertically and got it out in 2 mins. Hope that works for you.
This is like the scenario for all the lumps of dry tubular glue that went through spoke holes before coming loose.
Try wrapping duct tape around a pick so that the sticky side is out and put that up through the outer valve hole. Then be ready with something a bit more blunt like a Q-tip to help push it down from the inner side of the rim through the outer hole. Then shake up and down until it sticks to the duct tape.
Don’t lose the duct tape into the interior of the rim.
Thank you everyone for all your help, it’s finally out. I never could get any hold on it, as soon as I touched it in any way it would wedge itself in the outer edge. In the end removing the rim tape did the trick. That increased the odds that the stars would align while shaking it around. It still took long enough that it was shock when the rattle suddenly stopped.
Super glad this worked out! I was going to suggest just turn off your hearing aids ‘cause that always works for me. But then, who the heck would ever WANT hearing aids. LOL
That never occurred to me. Ok, now I’ve got 24 more holes of access which has got to help. Not so far though.