How to Repair a Flat Lawnmower Tire

DARN!! I hate when that happens. I almost made it through the first lawn mowing of the season when I noticed one front tire on the mower looked like the air pressure was low. It was low, in fact it was almost flat. 

As seen in the picture above, I must have picked up a nail left from an old roofing job. What to do now? Haul the mower to a shop to get the tire fixed? Take the tire off the mower and take it somewhere to be repaired? NO! Those are both slow, troublesome and more costly than necessary. 

OK then, what? Fix it yourself without even removing the tire! If you have tubeless tires, and most are these days, it’s an easy job.   

Like most jobs, the first thing you need are the right tools. In this case the tools are simple and inexpensive. They can be found together in a package or separately at any good hardware store. Here they are: 

A. Reamer:  This is used to clean out the puncture hole in the tire.  
B.  Rubber Cement
C.  Puncture Repair Material or “Plug”
D.  “T” Handle Plugger 

So here is the process: 

1. Using pliers, remove the penetrating object (in this case a nail) from the tire.
2. Clean and enlarge the hole in the tire with the Reamer
3. Place a plug in the plugger tool and coat the plug with rubber cement. 
4. Push the plug into the hole in the tire. Stop pushing in when about a half inch or so of the plug remains on the outside of the tire. 
5. Slowly withdraw the plugger tool from the tire. The plug will remain in the tire. 
6. Add air to the tire as needed and snip off the excess plug material flush with the outside surface of the tire. 

That’s it. It really is as easy as it sounds. This process will repair small holes in tires on mowers, wheel barrows, trailers, ATV’s, etc. It even works fine in an automobile tire but …. on second thought, you may want to leave that one to a pro. 

Here's what it looks like with pictures.

Place a plug in the plugger tool and coat the plug with rubber cement.

Push the plug into the hole in the tire. Stop pushing in when about a half inch or so of the plug remains on the outside of the tire. The plug material is very tough but it’s also soft and flexible. It will bend and fill the hole in the tire as it is inserted.  

Slowly withdraw the plugger tool from the tire. The plug will remain in the tire. At that point, the plug is installed and ready to be trimmed off flush with the outside of the tire.

All done.