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I pulled this car off the shelf after it had been sitting in a case for a couple of years.
It was built for one of the winter Showdowns.
The Paul Gage rear tires are cracking & slowly melting into goo as they turn a beautiful transparent red??????????????
They are 22160's I think they're probably XPG's
They've never been treated with anything.....Just trued & run at Headquarters.
They're glued on Pro-Track aluminum wheels with nail polish as normal...... :think:
----------------I didn't use RED nail polish either. :roll:

I have seen the transparent red on other urethane tires. Could be light, glue or the nail polish...or just old age.
I dont know for sure but I dont think this is purely a PG problem.

...........No finger pointing intended, only mentioned for reference.............
Just curious, never seen this before, the fronts seem OK &
all mounted the same way & same time. But.....I think the fronts are XP's

The same thing happened to me with a pair of urethanes (don't know what brand) on a Scaley GT40 that had been sitting in the drawer a while that had no treatment or glue or anything. Maybe some urethanes suffer from old age too.

I’ve seen KD tires do this too one tire out of a batch of ???????? I think it’s just the luck of the draw :think:

It happens. And no way of really identifying the cause. Of all the urethane I have, even going back many years to KD, they are 98% good to go. But a few on my shelf had this happen. Some hand made by Shotgun, a few older KD.

Shame it happened sir, but I’ll get you some fresh shoes.

There is a bit od science mixed into the making of urethane tires and some use a drop of red tint with the black, for reasons of shpre hardness. I dont understand the technicalities, but do know that it works. This is perhaps part of the issue.
I have never had this issue with straight black urethanes and i have produced thousands over the years. I uavent actually had this issue with any of my red tint additives either but i only use water to clean the tires, no other cleaners such as lighter fluid or wd40 etc.
Bit of a mystery really.
Bob

It has only happened on the XPG Shore 20 mix. The untinted rubber is a transparent amber color that also turns red for unknown reasons. I have attempted to reproduce the events leading up to the "rot" and have no commonalities that lead to a solution. I have made molds from the same rubber, some are 5 years old and still working fine.

All my queens are wearing the PGT compound. No XPG on the shelf.

I only have limited experience with urethane chemistry, a former employer was a major player in that field however. Urethane is normally a very stable material, most of the things made out of urethane should last a lifetime. It looks like the problem happens when the red tint is added to the formulation to alter the hardness of the finished product. The fact that the problem takes some time to develop would make troubleshooting more difficult.

Funny you should mention this!
We use the locally made MJK urethanes and last Friday night when racing a Scalextric MK 1 Escort in the Classic Rally class, in between changing lanes I looked down and a rear had done the same thing, gone red and starting to decompose.
Never use treatment apart from a wipe with a damp rag, the guy who runs the local slot car shop (where I bought the tyres) was racing with us and he had never seen it but other guys had.
Must just be the nature of the beast.

Chris.

A couple of my older PG tires have done the same thing. These are cars that I've had for over 5 years so I just figured it was due to old age and replaced them...

QC

So , does this mean that if we have PG tires they might fall apart some day soon

Fall apart? I doubt it. I’ve raced on many sets, hard, for several years and have had to switch them out as they wore down (the softer XPGs); I’ve found I prefer the firmer PGTs now. But never had any breakdown like what’s been discussed.

I still prefer Paul’s tires to everything else on a flat matte, latex painted wood track where dust will be present.

Cheers, eh!
Tom

Boy, and here I thought I had a lot of cars , I b et the Tupperware lady in your town must really like you