Valve cap, a small and easy to be taken seriously, also plays an important role in the huge vehicle composed of tens of thousands of parts. But before we talk about the valve cap, let’s look at the valve.
With the development of automobile industry, the structure and manufacturing technology of tire have made a qualitative leap, and the structure and types of tire valves are constantly changing. Now the valves are usually divided into two categories, one is “inner tube valve”, the other is “tubeless valve”. Now there is also an internal storage type of gourd valve which can be directly installed on the rim. All pneumatic tires inflate and deflate the inner tube or tubeless tire through the tire valve. Keep the tire under the proper pressure in different environments.
First of all, it depends on what kind of valve our car is equipped with. The valves on the market are made of rubber and metal. According to the structure, it can be divided into rubber metal valve and metal valve with rubber gasket. The former is mostly used for car tires, while the latter is mainly used for truck tires.
Because the rubber valve will inevitably have aging problems, the valve will gradually crack, deform and lose elasticity. When the vehicle is running, the rubber valve will also swing back and forth with the centrifugal force, which will accelerate the aging of the rubber. Generally speaking, the service life of the rubber valve is 3-4 years, which is not much different from the service life of the tire. Therefore, when we replace the tire with a new one, we must replace it with a new one. Because there is an aging cycle in the tire valve. When a new tire is replaced, although the old valve may not see any problem at that time, the valve may be aging ahead of time in the service life of the new tire, which will bring hidden danger to driving safety.
In order to avoid the aging problem of rubber valves, metal valves gradually appear in the market (steel valve is one of them). Due to the essential change of material, the price of steel valve is much higher than that of rubber valve, but the service life of steel valve is two to three times of that of rubber valve, which is mainly due to its metal material is not easy to be oxidized, and the metal valve also has a better air tightness.
After understanding the valve, we are going to talk about the valve cap, which is the most easily overlooked and lost important part of the valve. However, a small cap can affect our driving safety. Here we will surely say: are you kidding? Can a valve cap affect driving safety? Is a valve cap important? The function of the valve cap is only to prevent dust, or to prevent micro air leakage when the valve core is not tightened. It really doesn’t matter much to our tires and cars
But if you think so, it is a big mistake. The closest part to the valve cap is the valve core. The valve core is composed of core body, core seat, core spring, core sealing ring, core seat gasket, core rod and bracket. As one of the most important components of the tire valve, the valve core can realize the functions of inflation, deflation and air tightness of the tire. Therefore, the structure of the valve core is not only complex, but also the technical requirements of manufacturing and installation are very high. It is no exaggeration to say that the valve core not only determines the performance of the tire to a certain extent, but also determines our driving safety.
But what is the protection of such an important part? It is the “least valuable” and the “valve cap” that we usually most easily ignore. As the dust cover of the tire valve core, the valve cap not only plays the role of dust prevention and beauty. Without the valve cap, the thread of the valve will be corroded quickly, and the dust will easily enter into the valve core. When we pump the tire again, the dust particles will stop in the valve core and cause air leakage. If it is more serious, the dust will “fall” into the tire. When the vehicle is driving at high speed, the sand particles in the tire will bring us unnecessary trouble.
So no matter the car owner or the tire shop, after reading this article, I hope everyone will pay attention to a “small hat”, and never “don’t do nothing for small things”.