@wafter I hope you don't mind me posting this up here, but I thought I'd post a few photo's of my back wheel being converted so folk could see what was involved.
My bike was sold as tubeless ready, but for the last 3 years has run with tubes in. So in order to convert it I needed to buy a few things. I decided to buy a tubeless conversion kit and after a few recommendations on here I settled for the Caffee Latex kit, which also included a syringe, a key requirement as far as I was concerned. I bought the kit for 44 Euros, so not too bad, the photo below is just after I converted the front wheel, so one valve is missing from the photo.
My back wheel, despite being tubeless ready, doesn't have the correct tape in it, however, the kit comes with this included. So the first job is to give it a good clean and then wipe it thoroughly with alcohol.
Once done I then wrapped it carefully with the new tape using the old tape as a base. I'm not sure if that's right, but it worked for me!
With the taping finished, I installed the valve and then the tire over the rim. With the tire sat in the middle of the rim it was an easy job to seat it completely without tire levers. I then used I cloth dipped into soapy water to thoroughly wet the tire and rim and aid mounting. Then the fun part! time to inflate the tank to 160psi and flip the switch. With a massive crack the tire inflates and seats into the bead. There's a line on the tire that allows you to check if the tire is correctly seated all around, with that checked, it's time to move on to the sealant.
Then I deflated it again, with the tire correctly mounted it's not popping back of the bead in a hurry. So I unscrewed the valve core to make sure the tire was completely deflated before adding the sealant. Then I popped the valve core back in, primed the syringe with 60ml of sealant and screwed the adapter to the valve. Then I injected the sealant in, removed the adapter and pumped the tire back up. Then it's a simple matter of shaking the tire and letting it spin in your hands for a bit to get the sealant all around the inside of the tire.
This is the dry method of mounting tubeless, the wet method involves pouring the sealant directly into the tire before mounting it. Aside from the small mess of cleaning the syringe, I found this method was really clean and simple.
Overall I paid 44 Euros for the kit and 40 Euros for the compressor tank. I'll also need to top up the sealant every three months, so there is no way I'm saving money over a tubed system. However, in theory I should save myself the hassle of punctures long term and more importantly I should be able to run lower pressures off road, whilst reducing the risk of snake bite punctures to zero.
