It’s hard to imagine a worse sound on the tracks than – pop-psssst. But don’t worry for less than the cost of a 6 pack of beer, you can make sure you have a surefire solution to most tyre problems no matter where you find yourself!

The Hercules Tyre Repair Kit has a solution for nearly any tyre puncture, innertube tear or valve damage and includes 45 pieces in a bright hard plastic case.

We are going over how to best use your new tyre repair kit for a range of different issues you may encounter.

A damaged tyre can leak air in a number of ways:

If you are lucky and your tyre is leaking from the valve core you can repair it in seconds, simply take the valve removal tool and remove the damaged valve core. This is as simple as unscrewing the damaged core, if there is still pressure inside your tyre once the core has been removed it will start to empty itself quite quickly. Don’t worry, once the new valve core is in place it will take less than a few minutes to get your tyres back up to pressure with a Thumper compressor. To replace the core, make sure the replacement core is clean, and then simply lubricate the rubber seal with a bit of spit or some lubricant from the tyre repair kit. Simply screw in the replacement core and re-inflate with your compressor.

Voila.

The next easiest repair you may need to encounter, is a puncture in the tread of your tyre. This is fairly simple to fix. The first step is to clean up the tear with the reaming tool from your tyre repair kit, firstly use a little bit of the lubrication from the included jar. Once the tool is inserted into the damaged part of the tyre, you will need to saw it back and forward to clean up the hole and to give the repair strips something to bite onto.

Once the hole is reamed, insert one of the 20x included self-adhesive rubber repair strips into the eye of the insertion tool and pull it about half way through.

Now it’s time to push the tool into the hole, be careful to not push your plug all the way through. Once the plug is inserted you can remove the insertion tool, you may need more than one plug if the hole is larger.

All that is left to do is cut off the excess with the included knife and re-inflate the tyre using your 12v car compressor.

The final and most difficult, common tyre issue people may encounter is a busted tyre valve stem. This is a slightly more complicated repair. To replace your valve stem, you’ll have to remove the whole rim from your vehicle. When jacking your car up, make sure the vehicle is stable and not going to fall off the jack.

With the rim off the car you’ll have to now de-seat the bead, firstly you’ll need to release all the air pressure from the tyre, the easiest and safest way to release the pressure is by removing the valve core as described above.

NB: don’t lose the valve core.

To de-seat the bead, place your deflated tyre on its rim underneath a vehicle that is stable (maybe your mates) and setup an offroad jack to put downward pressure on the sidewall of your tyre this will push the lip of the tyre off the seat.

Once your tyre is de-seated you can remove the jack, use a set of pliers from your Adventure Kings toolkit to pull the old valve free. Now with the damaged valve removed grab one of your 3x replacement valve stems from your Hercules Tyre repair kit and feed it through the rim from the inside.

Once you can see the valve stem on the outside, grasp it with your pliers and pull until it is seated neatly.

It is time to reseat your tyre bead, this can be a little bit tricky but with a high flow air compressor like the Thumper Max’s huge 300L/min output, reseating beads is made very easy!

If you have a ratchet strap handy connect the 2 hooks together to make a loop. Run the loop around the circumference to compress the tread and push the sidewall near to the lip of the rim to make your compressor’s job easier.

Hook up your Compressor and let it rip, you’ll know when the bead seats, as it will make a sharp pop. Once your bead has seated, keep an eye on your pressure till you reach your desired pressure and you are ready to rock and roll!

These are a few simple tricks that will get your 4WD back up and running, once back in town a professional tyre repairer can make a more permanent repair to punctures using glue in inserts, these will reduce the risk of your tyre losing pressure unusually fast.