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Original tube

I have an old double trailer from when my kids were little that I kept and use to haul stuff. Yesterday I heard a loud bang while it was sitting in the driveway, and it turns out one of the inner tubes blew. It is not repairable. I have been searching for hours for this type of tube, without success:

16x1.75 with a bent Schrader valve

It has to be bent because the wheel is solid. The original one was a Kenda, I can find them with straight valves, or I can find wider ones (2.125 and up), but not this size with a bent valve (except for Ebay with shipping from China, but I don't want to wait until August). Should I get one with a straight valve and try to bend it/squeeze it in, or get a 2.25 inch wide tube for my 1.75 tire?

Rim detail

This trailer does not travel far or fast, but it has to carry heavy loads.

Loaded with firewood

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  • Shopping questions are of topic, but problem solving obviously isn't, so rather than voting to close I suggest you might like to edit your question to make it about the difficulty in pumping. Could you, for example, use a right-angle adaptor?
    – Chris H
    Jul 10, 2020 at 15:05
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    Thanks, @ChrisH, I reworded the question. I saw these adapters, but I don't think I have enough clearance. There is only a small opening in the rim wall where valve stem comes out, and it needs to bend right away.
    – cdonner
    Jul 10, 2020 at 16:05
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    The tube is labelled as "16x1.75" but is that the actual tire size? A 16x1.75 (nominal) will fit up to 2.125, 2.25 or even 2.35 depending on the manufacturer (based on what I've seen online).
    – DavidW
    Jul 10, 2020 at 16:33
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    @DavidW hadn't even occured to me to check this, but yes, tire size is also 16x1.75.
    – cdonner
    Jul 10, 2020 at 17:07
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    @cdonner Those angled valve adapters exist in different sizes, you may have to shop around. I use one for my motorcycle that has a very short part that screws onto the valve, about half the length of the one on the picture. Or if the valve has a rubber stem you might bend it out of the hole before screwing on the adapter.
    – Carel
    Jul 11, 2020 at 18:15

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To buy time, I'd attempt a patch. Since the damage looks bigger than a commercial patch, I'd cut a larger piece from an old inner tube, and make one. Downside, any other part of this old tube could fail in the same way. Changing tube with a load-on is challenging.

When you do find a supplier, buy at least three tubes, two for trailer, one for spare and any more to store at home.

My searching shows they are available, but 1.75 is rare and 2.125 is more common. You could stuff this larger tube in your existing tyres, and they would be a little more robust due to less stretch, but harder to mount without pinching. So consider your existing tyres and whether its time to replace them with 16" x 2.125", or more. 3" seems to be a common size too.

Which leads to - Have you ever weighed your loaded trailer? Get a bathroom scale and in turn put it under each wheel and the drawbar. Sum the three weights, and that's your total. Guessing you carry 50-80 kg in there, so a wider/stronger tyre will help. The recommended max for my trailer is 55 pounds/25 kilograms, but I've carried 100 kg of UPSs successfully. More-robust tyres certainly help !

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    Thanks, all good thoughts. The loaded trailer can be quite heavy, so heavy that I have to navigate even short descents on gravel very carefully. I ended up ordering the 2.125 and will go from there. The tire blew because I had inflated it to 40psi a few days prior so that it could handle a heavy load, and then I left it out in the blazing sun. And it is 18 years old.
    – cdonner
    Jul 13, 2020 at 15:31

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