Has anyone had a degreaser eat/erode an inner tube?

This is a new one on me, and our bike mechanic.

I'll spare you much of the story.

I took a bike to the shop and while it was there, our mechanic degreased
the rim.

About a week later the inner tube developed a puncture. When I looked at
the tube there was a hole in an eroded patch on the rim side. The eroded
patch was 6 to 8 inches long.

I patched the hole and the patch failed overnight.

I patched it again with a significantly larger piece of rubber.

I discovered that some of the glue on this patch had failed after I took
the tube out to deal with another flat. A second hole had developed in
the eroded spot.

The best we can come up with is that the problem might be chemical and
might be caused by a degreaser... possibly a new, eco-friendly one they
started using.

Which leads right back to my question...

Thanks for your time.

In article ,
phorbin wrote:

snip

The best we can come up with is that the problem might be chemical
and might be caused by a degreaser... possibly a new, eco-friendly
one they started using.

Greases are petroleum products which degreasers dissolve. Rubber is a
petroleum product and it makes sense that a degreaser could do this.
You didn't mention anything about a rim strip, though; the mechanic
didn't happen to leave that off, did he (or leave a cloth rim strip on
while degreasing to soak the stuff up)?

Tim McNamara wrote:
In article ,
phorbin wrote:

snip

The best we can come up with is that the problem might be chemical
and might be caused by a degreaser... possibly a new, eco-friendly
one they started using.

Greases are petroleum products which degreasers dissolve. Rubber is a
petroleum product

eh? what /kind/ of rubber are you talking about timmy?

this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber


and it makes sense that a degreaser could do this.
You didn't mention anything about a rim strip, though; the mechanic
didn't happen to leave that off, did he (or leave a cloth rim strip on
while degreasing to soak the stuff up)?

In article ,
says...
Tim McNamara wrote:
In article ,
phorbin wrote:

snip

The best we can come up with is that the problem might be chemical
and might be caused by a degreaser... possibly a new, eco-friendly
one they started using.

Greases are petroleum products which degreasers dissolve. Rubber is a
petroleum product

eh? what /kind/ of rubber are you talking about timmy?

this one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber

Butyl rubber...

In article ,
says...
In article ,
phorbin wrote:

snip

The best we can come up with is that the problem might be chemical
and might be caused by a degreaser... possibly a new, eco-friendly
one they started using.

Greases are petroleum products which degreasers dissolve. Rubber is a
petroleum product and it makes sense that a degreaser could do this.
You didn't mention anything about a rim strip, though; the mechanic
didn't happen to leave that off, did he (or leave a cloth rim strip on
while degreasing to soak the stuff up)?


He took off the old, rubber rim strip and replaced it with a plastic one
of some sort after degreasing.

I'd never thought of rubber being a petroleum product before but having
looked up the formula for butyl rubber, it's clear that you're correct.

Once I got my search criteria correct, I managed to find a faq that
says, "Using solvents for cleaning may also change the structural bond
of the innerliner itself (the butyl rubber gets dissolved)." from a Tire
repair company's faq.

The degreaser has to be really strong, because there was no apparent
residue on the rim and it still damaged and continued to erode the tube
two weeks later.

I guess My next step is to neutralize it somehow.

Thanks for the insight.

In article ,
phorbin wrote:

In article ,
says...
In article ,
phorbin wrote:

snip

The best we can come up with is that the problem might be chemical
and might be caused by a degreaser... possibly a new, eco-friendly
one they started using.

Greases are petroleum products which degreasers dissolve. Rubber is a
petroleum product and it makes sense that a degreaser could do this.
You didn't mention anything about a rim strip, though; the mechanic
didn't happen to leave that off, did he (or leave a cloth rim strip on
while degreasing to soak the stuff up)?


He took off the old, rubber rim strip and replaced it with a plastic one
of some sort after degreasing.

Could the sharp edge of the plastic rim strip be cutting the tube.
Petroleum does not attack butyl rubber. Notice how your bicycle
tires are immune to chemical attack?

--
Michael Press

In article ,
says...


He took off the old, rubber rim strip and replaced it with a plastic one
of some sort after degreasing.

Could the sharp edge of the plastic rim strip be cutting the tube.
Petroleum does not attack butyl rubber. Notice how your bicycle
tires are immune to chemical attack?

Subject: Has anyone had a degreaser eat/erode an inner tube?
From: phorbin

In article ,
says...


He took off the old, rubber rim strip and replaced it with a plastic one
of some sort after degreasing.

Could the sharp edge of the plastic rim strip be cutting the tube.
Petroleum does not attack butyl rubber. Notice how your bicycle
tires are immune to chemical attack?



The surface of the rubber was eaten away and it looked rotted and soft.
The rotted patch was an irregular shape which probably conforms to the
rim. The holes formed in the rotted patch.

A chemical attack is the only reasonable explanation. The theory is
being tested.

It may be that the issue has more than one contributing condition. A
degreaser that can attack butyl and a duration of time with the residue
of the degreaser trapped against the tube. It may also be a degreaser
that degrades to constituents that can attack butyl.

Since I've never used solvents on or around bike inner tubes I've never
had reason to notice that bicycle tires are immune to chemical attack --
The faq I found suggests that they aren't.

They are certainly stable within their expected operating conditions.
I'd guess however that running into a patch of butyl dissolving
degreaser isn't within those conditions. :-)