Fillmore Valves

[AlanW]

Has anyone tried them, are they as good as all the reviews suggest they are?
Yes they are expensive but l'm for ever having to replace my Presta valves as they get bunged up with dried sealant.
But on Wednesday, l decided to get the summer bike ready for the year ahead. That's when the fun began!
The valve stems on both wheels were blocked solid! Both tyres were still fully inflated but even after removing the valve cores both tyres refused to deflate. An hour later and l'd fully managed to poke a hole thu the congeled sealant to allow some air to escape. This then enabled me to remove the tyres and get proper access to the valve stems.
Fillmore valves seem to address that problem, but as usual such luxury come at a cost.

Below is what came out of the front tyre!

 

[Dogtrousers]

I think @Sea of vapours has used these

Edit. Yes, see:

Just for general information, given that the OP's made a decision ...

An issue with many of these options, as per the OP's post above, is that even if some form of compressed air device is available to seat the tyre, it tends to require that the Presta valve core be removed to do so, since the valve core restricts air flow and may not allow the rapid inflation required to seat the tyre. If the tyres don't stay on the shoulders without pressure this is clearly a problem when the pump / Airshot / whatever is removed. Similarly, removing the valve core later to top up sealant may lead to the tyre becoming unseated.

There is now a solution to this in the form of two new valves with 3-4 times the flow rate of Presta valves (but using Presta style pump heads to inflate). This means that there is no need (nor ability) to remove the valve core during inflation. Additionally, both these can cope with sealant being injected through the valve, they say, so once the tyre's initially mounted there's no need to remove it, or the valve core, until it's worn out, so minimal risk of ever needing to reseat it. They also mean that inflating with a track pump is much easier since you're pumping through the valve itself.

These are the Hi-Flow Valve from 76 Projects and the Reserve Fillmore Valve. I have a pair of the former and they work very well indeed. Both are very much not at the cheap end of the tubeless valve market, but they do have the potential to remove much of the extreme faffage many people seem to suffer.

 

[Sea of vapours]

I've not used the Fillmore ones; I've used the 76 Projects ones linked in the quote above. They do indeed solve all the problems @AlanW mentions. Right now, they seem to be on offer and thus verging on cheap!

 

[AlanW]

I've not used the Fillmore ones; I've used the 76 Projects ones linked in the quote above. They do indeed solve all the problems @AlanW mentions. Right now, they seem to be on offer and thus verging on cheap!

I did look at the 76 Project ones, but I think that the design differs quite a lot from the Fillmore valves. The most common issue I experience is the actual body of the stem blocking more frequently than the actual valve core, worse with me deep section carbon wheels. The Fillmore valve "should" in theory avoid this from happening as the bobbin that seals the valve stem is right at the end, inside the tyre. I think that I'm right in saying that the 76 Project ones, while much better than the normal Presta valves, can still block the body of the valve stem?

 

[Sea of vapours]

Yes, the 76 Projects valve portion is towards the pump end of the valve and there is an unprotected 20mm or so of valve stem which can fill with sealant, and therefore could clog. That said, I did not experience clogging when using them until I started using Silca sealant. I've since changed to Peaty's valves since a) I value the Silca sealant over the valves I use, and it was not possible, until a week or so ago, to inject it through even a valve stem, b) pretty, Chris King colours :-)

One thing I do now which seems to avoid valve stems becoming clogged, even when using Silca sealant, is to coat the inside of the valve stem and the valve itself in Silca's Synergetic lubricant. This, they claim inhibits sealant adhesion, and this does seem to work well, at least on the stems.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I might waste a bit of money on these. I haven't bought anything pointless for my bike for ages.

My problem is the one @Sea of vapours describes above. I want to top up sealant, or mount new tyres and they unseat themselves in the time between unscrewing the air blaster and inserting the core and pumping up.

I don't have @AlanW 's valve stem blocked with gunge problem, or at least have not had it yet.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Is that tuna salad you found in your tyres? 😳

I have Fillmore on the rear tubeless on my recumbent. Works great, no clogging, and easy to seat tyre with track pump. There’s no core removal, and you will have to top up sealant by popping a bit of tyre off. But the latter is next to never in winter and only once or twice over Spring / Summer.

 

[AlanW]

One thing I do now which seems to avoid valve stems becoming clogged, even when using Silca sealant, is to coat the inside of the valve stem and the valve itself in Silca's Synergetic lubricant. This, they claim inhibits sealant adhesion, and this does seem to work well, at least on the stems.

Yes, I have recently started doing the same, early days to say if its made any difference or not

 

[AlanW]

There’s no core removal, and you will have to top up sealant by popping a bit of tyre off.

I thought I read that its still possible to inject sealant in via the valve, but its not a problem if that's not the case though

 

[AlanW]

One thing I do now which seems to avoid valve stems becoming clogged, even when using Silca sealant,

I assume that you are using the v1 Silca sealant? If I hadn't got loads of the v1 version left plus three large bottles of the Silca Replenisher, then I would have gone over the the v2 version which looks to be much more user friendly

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I thought I read that its still possible to inject sealant in via the valve, but its not a problem if that's not the case though

Well if you can find a kit that works with them then let me know.

 

[AlanW]

Well if you can find a kit that works with them then let me know.

According to the Reserve Wheels website:-

Yes, you can direct-inject sealant through the valve simply by removing all pressure in the tire and using either a syringe style injector with tube, or cutting the top of the sealant bottle to size. The Fillmore has no valve core to remove or get in the way.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

According to the Reserve Wheels website:-

Yes, you can direct-inject sealant through the valve simply by removing all pressure in the tire and using either a syringe style injector with tube, or cutting the top of the sealant bottle to size. The Fillmore has no valve core to remove or get in the way.

Maybe the valves have changed the outside but I found my old injector kit didn’t work. Maybe I need a new injector kit. I’ll take a look

 

[Dogtrousers]

I was interested about the practicalities of injecting through the valve so I took to youtube. Lots of people in comments saying "I wish they would demonstrate how to do this in their videos." I did eventually find a vid of someone doing it. What the guy did was get a length of clear tubing, shove it over the valve then stick the pointy conical end of a small sealant bottle in the other end and squeezed. I cba to re-find the video, but if anyone really, really wants me to I'll dig it out (It's not really worth it, trust me).

 

[AlanW]

I have the Stan's Injector which has a brass screw on end. So unless l'm missing something, what can't that just be screwed on the valve, that's the normal way that l add my sealant (excluding the v1 Silca sealant)