Kevin_56
Site Supporter
Guilty as charged. Thought I had stripped the threads out of, yes, an Ariete Aluminum Stem. The nice cap with the rubber gasket sealed the stem well enough that I was not loosing air based on the soapy water test. Ordered new stems, replaced the one I thought had stripped threads.I wonder how many folks replace their valve stems to fix a slow leak when all it would have taken was this:
http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/XTS0/154901/N1769.oap?ck=Search_N1769_1415089_488&pt=N1769&ppt=C0337
It was after dismounting the tire and replacing the stem that I decided to remove the valve core from the one I removed. Yep you guessed it, it was the core that had the bad threads.
Up side, I was able to pay it forward and give my second set of stems to a friend that wanted the angle stems.
Valve core threads appear to be the weak link of the assembly, at least in my situation.
I have spares as you suggest, just in case.