So I’ve fitted this spiffy new wheel on my wheelbarrow, and the valve is completely inaccessible with foot pump or bicycle pump – it’s too short to wrangle outwards like I did with the old wheel, and there’s isn’t enough space between the fancy go-faster mouldings of the wheel to connect vertically.
I’m thinking a right-angle adaptor. There are lots online, but they’re all for motorbikes, quad bikes etc. Will they fit? Are all valves the same diameter? Etc.? Anybody got any experience of such arcana?
Insert impish comment from lovable scamp here.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g401/mikethep/arrow_zpsj4khsvjr.jpeg
Non-impish response:
I have a wheelbarrow (I’m sure many of us do, time of life and all that), and I discovered that inflatable tyres are not the way to go. Wheelbarrows (unless you have the poncey indoor “publisher’s” wheelbarrow made out of rush and willow and sustainable hardwoods) are used over rough, manly terrain. Generally embedded with sharp stuff; stones, nails, splinters, shards of human bone, unexploded landmines and the like. Inflatable tyres are, in short, for cissies who use wheelbarrows for display purposes. I upgraded my inflatable tyre wheel to a solid rubber job and never looked back. Takes hostile terrain in its stride (er …). Never deflates, punctures, or needs any kind of maintenance.
Man up, Mike. Use that inflatable thing as an ashtray and start wheelbarrowing for real.
This is first rate wheelbarrow advice and I might act on it.
(*PUTS THUMBS IN BRACES, SPITS ONTO GROUND*) You bet yer sweet life it is! I wouldn’t give no friend of mine a bum steer when it comes to the manly art of wheelbarrowin’!
I thought about that, but they cost $85. Only paid $20 for the wheelbarrow. You’d better take the cissies who use wheelbarrows for display purposes bit up with Mrs thep.
They cost about twelve quid here. One of my more lavish purchases.
Two thoughts Mike. Can you not inflate the tyre before attaching the wheel? If not then I think you’re fairly safe to assume that an adapter will work. My car tyre pump will also work on my wheelbarrow and my bicycle. But can’t you just take the wheel off and check the valve with a standard pump first?
It came inflated, but now needs topping up. It doesn’t matter whether the wheel’s on or off, the valve is equally inaccessible. I could take the tyre off the hub, but since it presumably doesn’t have an inner tube, I couldn’t inflate it then anyway. I suppose it won’t break the bank to lash out $5 on eBay and see what happens…
Hmm, no inner tube? Not sure then. My wheelbarrow tyre is just like a small fat bicycle tyre, with an inner tube.
(*PUTS HEAD IN HANDS, GROANS*)
Valves is valves, by an’ large unless you’re talking them skinny bisickle wheels the lycra fascists favour. I think you’ll find that a modest investment on eBay should do the trick.
Just pretend you’re Boadicea
Mike’s wheelbarrow (bought by wife) yesterday:
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/buddjellomolds_zps9amjbm9k.jpg
Most tyre valves for things like that in the UK are Schraeder – the size that a car pump or garage airline connects to. ‘Presta’ type are smaller, mainly on bicycles. They both work in the same way. As long as the extension piece is the same fitting type, then you know it will fit. I’m guessing here, but you may need to remove the existing valve and put it into the extension. Or the extension will have its own.
Where else on the internet can one talk frankly about such things?
I know, I’m very moved.
The tyre on our wheelbarrow says ‘not suitable for aviation, road or racing’.
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=208
I’ve just done an Amazon UK search for ‘tyre valve extenders’ and all the ones on the first page were car/Schraeder type. Appears you just need to screw them on tight for them to work.
‘The Afterword – a safe space to talk about wheelbarrows, and our needs.’
“I’ve just done an Amazon UK search for ‘tyre valve extenders” – Afterword T-shirt
Valve porn!
..and it’s vital Mike has that wheelbarrow repaired asap because..
http://i1150.photobucket.com/albums/o615/JohnDetail/image_zpskpgkswvo.jpeg
I know Mr Thep has been away for a while but he has really come back in fine style.
This has to be the best ATM ever.
He’s been rehearsing this for months. He was very nervous about making the post, but I encouraged him. It’s not only the best post ever on the blog, it’s the best post ever, on the blog!
I think this is my favourite Afterword thread theme EVAH! Useful too; I also have a wheelbarrow tire which Mrs BB is constantly reminding me needs inflating. This thread may just inspire me to get off my arse and get it done. On the other had, there are the Sunday papers and another cup of coffee on the go….
Quite so HP – and an issue of such import that it should not be mocked but quite the opposite, careful research by all of the Massive should be undertaken because, afterall, it could be any one of us who is catapulted into a similar predicament….well any of us who has a wheel barrow.
My two bob’s worth Mike. I’d lay odds your barrow was purchased from Bunnings and most likely similar to mine. The valve on my cissy pump-up tyre looks pretty close to a valve for a car so I reckon one of those right angle adaptors s worth a shot.
It’s a Bunnie Barrow, eh? Thought as much.
Which particular fuck off heavy duty wheelbarrow, wheel or axle would you like HP ?
https://www.bunnings.com.au/search/products?q=wheel%20barrow
The orange one looks fun!
Bladdy heck and’ strewth. Shame that’s not Holland Park in Lahndahn, it’s bladdy Queeeeensland. I paid a sight more than that for moy last wheelie, in proper pounds, and the bugger’s just made of bladdy tin and won’t last longer than a one-eyed Roo on the main road outta town after dark on a Sat’day night.
/crap Oz accent
Feck. Wrong link. This should be down there, the next from @mikethep.
Actually no, JW, got it off a geezer in Holland Park, a couple of suburbs over.
http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/holland-park/other-garden/wheelbarrows-cheap/1115772969
He does a refurb on them and knocks them out for $20 or so. Nothing more than $50. He has a thriving sideline in birdcages too.
It did occur to me to just go and buy another wheelbarrow rather than a new wheel, but Jen takes a dim view of such profligacy.
I know why the caged bird sings full beaked
But wonder why the wheelbarrow wheel does squeak
Needs oil, probably.
The amount of noise our wheelie-bin makes is disgraceful. I lubricate the wheels and axles, but it still does it. Why they don’t fit them with decent – any! – bearings is beyond me.
This thread is making me feel that I ought to go and do something useful, like stack some wood neatly.
Aren’t you supposed to be taking it easy? Leave your wood alone, young man!
You seem to have been mistakenly supplied with a squeeliebin.
Get onto the council tomorrow.
Lubrication. Valves. Pumping.
You people disgust me.
I recall seeing a barrow when you were showing me round the estate. Didn’t realise it was bespoke model err except it has no spokes. Mines on the way out but it is rust on the points where the legs are bolted on to the err are they arms … Handles ??? Whatever the long things are.
Have had two* of my wheelbarrows stolen from my allotment. Can you get a folding or inflatable on to take home in the car?
* Didn’t have two at once, one was a replacement for the previously stolen one.
Inflating is what started this whole thing
Not just the tyre, the whole wheelbarrow.
Be a man and use your lips.
(This may not be first time I’ve used that phrase.)
Please miss, can I have a cushion for me knees?
Well, my lips have been in some tight spots in their time, but really…
I can’t be the only AWer who’s desperate to know exactly what it is that Mike has been wheeling about in his little unibarrow. Please enlighten us, Mr Tehp!
Suspect he has hit the hay. You will just have to wait.
Grass cuttings. Compost. Drunks.
Australian rugby team
Bricks, bags of cement and suchlike manly things (but no gonads). Hence the need to pump up the tyre ??
I am moist.
Again?! It doesn’t take much, does it?
Careful near that cement!
This thread really is NSFW.
Well, all the way down here and nobody’s mentioned the Wheelbarrow as a sexual position.
Sometimes on this site it’s like the 70s never happened.
It did cross my mind
http://i.imgur.com/MeTXtX4.jpg
You’ll all be pleased to know that I reached out to a merchant of right-angle valve adaptors and asked whether his wares would do the job.
Hi mate, she’ll be right, came the answer, so I have committed. Another exciting instalment when it arrives.
But Mike ,
“Hi mate, she’ll be right” is a stock standard Australian response. I expect there was a “no worries” thrown in there too.
followed by the currently fashionable “too easy”?
or….perfect !!!!
My mechanic is an Aussie of few words and uses “no worries” as an all-purpose reply to any comment.
Instead of “yes”, “OK”, “that’s fine” etc he’ll say “no worries”
A typical phone conversation with him goes something like this:
“Hi Steve, I’ll bring the car in first thing tomorrow if that’s OK?”
“No worries”
“I’ll need it back by midday, if possible”
“No worries”
“So you’ll let me know if there are any problems?”
“No worries”
“OK, see you tomorrow then, bye”
“No worries”
I do find it a comforting saying, would that it were true.
I was expecting at least one “ooaaarrrI reckon” (with the usual upward inflection at the end there)
Would ya loik ta poke mah beard?
A man with a preposterously huge beard and a colouring book…. crazy comedy they had 20 years ago.
I know, Junior, I was just sharing my pleasure in getting it…
“Mike, what news from the world of right-angle wheelbarrow tyre valve adaptors?” I hear you cry…
Well, I’m happy to report that it turned up, fits – and works. Let joy be unconfined! Say goodbye to squishy cement-bag trucking!
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g401/mikethep/IMG_3900_zpscxkwoxwm.jpg
*huge blast of the Hallelujah Chorus*
That’s a stunning piece of pneumatic engineering technology. Great wheelbarrow porn money-shot, too!
(fapfapfap)
Well thank Christ for that Mike.
I can’t tell you the sleepless nights I’ve had and I really mean can’t.
Great pic – Afterword T -shirt ?
I can’t help wondering why they it was manufactured with an inaccessible valve in the first place.
That, of course, is the $25 question, which is what I paid for the wheel. Maybe if I hadn’t been so cheap I’d have got more length…
Bunnings?
Supercheap Auto, since you ask…
Ah, well. What can you expect?
Mmm, the wheel appears to have some sort of sealed bearing. Nice.
… and is that an anodised cast aluminium wheel?
I don’t know about the wheelbarrow, but I’m certainly carrying wood …
Having seen that, I’d have thought your usual petrol station air pump would have got in there.
Can I just say that I have the exact same issue with the wheels on my festival tent/small boy-transporting wagon and have found this invaluable?
Good to know I’m not alone!
You know the little black rubber caps you get on valves? Do we really need them? When they’re on bikes they tend to get mislaid and nothing seems to happen. I think there’s a psychological need to have a cap to screw on so we feel like we have completed a task.
Possibly, but they stop small objects becoming lodged between the stem and the valve tip which might actuate the valve, and deflate the tyre.
Aren’t they called “dust caps” for good reason?
Ohhhhhh.
Between this and KFD’s recent milkmaids thread (wherein I felt he was challenging my supremacy as the Afterword’s Pervert-in-Chief), my swonnicles have been revolving at speed for over a week.
Cease fanning this inferno of sensuality!
Friends, I have news. Off I went to Supercheap Auto this morning to buy a new wheelbarrow tyre (place has gone to pot while I’ve been away). Naturally I took the right angle adaptor off the old one and put it where I’d be able to find it again.
Guess what? The tyre now comes with its own right-angle valve! (Pictured earlier today.) This is an impressive demonstration of the power of the Massive to influence valve policy in the wheelbarrow tyre manufacturing industry, especially since it probably all happens in China. Anybody want to buy a right angle valve adaptor?
I feel your joy.@mikethep
Sky black with dust caps.
Goodness, that’s a perky one!
Any news that brings this glorious thread back to our attention is good news
Hoi! Bringing long-dead threads back from the dead* is my job.
(with Fred Dread)
“Spiffy” is a word you don’t often hear.
A distressing day at Chateau Grey. I went to use our trusty wheelbarrow to take the recycling out, and discovered the tyre and inner tube had burst. The tyre has been badly crazed for a while, but I’d only inflated it last weekend. Twenty years solid service.
Now I must source a new tyre and tube, or possibly a whole new wheel assembly.
The humanity !😱😱😱
Up thread I suggested a foldable or inflatable wheelbarrow, I was loaned a foldable one. It has a solid wheel therefore can’t go flat, unfortunately it’s a pain to try and push over the ground and because there is no locking on it you can’t tip it as it just folds up.
Had to buy a new hosepipe yesterday as that had been half inched from the allotment along with the bench that had been there for years and the flue liner I used for forcing rhubarb. Bastards.
Forcing rhubarb… One daren’t look that up in the Profanisaurus.
Bought the new hosepipe, and then found the old one in the shed at home. Now the proud possessor of two hosepipes.
However going down to the allotment at the weekend someone had burnt down the sheds etc on two of the other allotments so I think I got off lightly.
Out of interest, what kind of hosepipe did you get? The perfect hosepipe doesn’t seem to exist. The last one I bought was a newer type that had an internal metal scaffold that retracted like a Slinky when not in use. Seemed ideal until I over extended it and broke the scaffold. The old-fashioned type that you have to wrap around a hose hangout is ok, but always cumbersome and unwieldly. If there’s been a paradigm shift in hosepipe design I’m all ears.
Mine’s yellow and rolls up on a green plastic reel which mounts onto the back wall of the house. In fact, there’s a v-shaped metal bracket which mounts onto the wall, and the plastic reel slots into it, so the plastic reel can be removed and kept out of the frost during the winter.
The hose is supposedly kink-proof. The designers have obviously never met Mrs F.
I had one of those coiled plastic ones, supposed to not kink (it did) just bought a £10 one in lidl. Cumbersome but I shall cut it down as I don’t need it at full length.
Thinking of getting one of those drainpipe converters to a water butt too.
We’ve got one of those. If anything, it’s too efficient and the butt often overflow s.
Fnarr.
We have a butt pump. Hozelock Butt Pump. Stick it in a water butt, and it pumps. Through a hose, to where needed. Usually from the butts out front to the butt ‘farm’ by the shed.
The promotional video for my hose shows somebody running over it with a truck. The flow only diminishes slightly. I haven’t tried running over mine when it’s in action, but it’s impressively substantial enough for me to suspect that the video is not complete bullshit.
I found exactly this last year. I bought a solid wheel (12 quid from the dodgers) and have never looked back.
We are the 801. We are the central shaft (hurrr)
Replying to hubert as well; Sounds like solid advice. I believe my late parents’ barrow with a solid wheel is still going strong, and it must be over forty years old.
The pneumatic tyre gave a nice ride, though it did squirm with a heavy load, which I suspect was the reason for the warning on its side wall about it being unsuitable for ‘track, road or aviation’. Certainly, the nylon mesh now visible in the carcass is apparently only one thread deep; impossible to say if its radial or cross-ply.
I am distress.
What would Sir Robert Mark have to say about cross-ply wheelbarrow tyres?
Lynn Faulds-Wood: ‘It’s a potential death-trap”.
Lynn Faulds-Wood. Paper Scissors Stone. Knife Slits Water. London England – consider yourself warned.
Harry ‘Snapper’ Organs, of ‘Q’ Division, as Sir Robert was before his k-niggethood. . .
Sorry squire, I scratched the record!
With this comment Mike is only four off a hamper, surely a belated hamper should be his.
We need more wheelbarrow (I nearly typed eelbarrow which is a mental image too far) postings and let’s give Mike that hamper (though it may have gone off in the last five years)
Excellent idea Hubes. Thep and I are plotting a mini mingle in late May so a good nosh up of the virtual hamper would be excellent.
After multiple wheels for my trolley I went for the hard wheels. Stairs and the like prove more of a challenge but the wallet is heavier.
Do enjoy the virtual hamper send a photo please.
Noshing and a wheelbarrow. That’s the script for my next production written.
I agree the addition of eels is a step too far – and if I’m saying that…
Frank Muir: Come with me to the Far East, where you find me with my eelbarrow; a handy device to carry all the goodies I’ve purchased from the Eel Market.
Hannah Gordon: Wait, what? Eel Market?
Very confusing – eels are normally stored in a hovercraft.
I’m not sure about the storage for Anguilla Anguilla being the hovercraft as I am sure the Hungarian gentleman was expressing surprise that his ACV had been invaded by eels, possibly he wanted help to have them removed.
Subsequently he had a problem with his nipples as I recall, perhaps the aforementioned fauna had caused atmospheric disturbance and iration in the nation.
Possibly the eels were to be rendered down to make an eel balm to soothe those chapped nipples.
Eel balm… they have that in the Body Shop, I believe. Next to the guacamole scrotum preparation.
Possibly distressing image.
Trigger? Nylon, rubber, aluminium, garden implements. . .
A hamper?
Update: I’m looking at solid wheels rather than pneumatic on eBay, but interestingly, you can actually buy barrow inner tubes with angled valves!
I am distress now.
It had a long, happy life, and expired peacefully. . .
Barrow latest.
Well, I ordered a 13-inch puncture-proof ‘solid’ wheel, and received a 14-inch with a pneumatic tyre. Had to add some packers, as the tyre was – just – fouling on the barrow. Couldn’t be arsed to send it back, as I needed the barrow in service.
Now, let’s go and check the Spear & Jackson’s. . .
Fouling the barrow… A veritable skid-mark.
My lawn has a similar quantity of weeds and moss amongst the grass. I’ll have to go round to my mum’s and – after an hour or so of her spouting casual racism – borrow her scarifier.
Oh, we scarify it, and remove vast quantities of grass and moss every year. That ‘lawn’ is in the veg garden, in front of the shed and is really just a green path. The other lawn is as bad, though and appears mainly to be a hedgehog-poo depository.
Your certainly scarifying me, you beast.
I hate casual racism – if you can’t be bothered to put your back into it, what’s the point?
I somehow missed this thread revival last month chaps, and I have to say that I am most move and touch. The hamper hasn’t arrived yet, but I am ever-hope.