Valve stems

milehighpan: Congratulations on your new Pantera. Dale & I are new owners also.
I got my Pantera with Radial T/As. They are a long life hard rubber tire. When I take the freeway corners at around 90mph, they allow the car to hop a bit around the corner when hitting small bumps in the road.
I would recommend a softer rubber. Better cornering and grip on the road.
Sorry, I don't know about the valve stems, except that most mag type wheels have different types to keep the air in.
Wink

Your Campagnolo wheels likely have metal valve stems installed. This is a GOOD thing as the rubber ones age-harden & crack, just like old tires. Except that a bad valve stem can deflate the tire, usually at an highly inconvenient time (like at 150 mph....) FYI, the OEM stems in Europe were aluminum. And do NOT allow anyone to install clip-on balence weights on your magnesium wheels. These weights move slightly, crack the protective paint, water gets in there and rapidly corrodes the mag, and the wheel can crack at that point. Use ONLY glue-on balence weights. Keep in touch- thats our job!

Thanks Wink,
Are you talking regular T/A's or euro T/A's?

Jack,
Thanks for the reply.
The stems don't look like a standard metal stem. Regular stems have a rubber seal at the base of the stem that seals the wheel hole opening. The ones on my wheels have a short metal shaft coming out of the wheel hole and the threaded part of the valve stem starts from there. After looking at it I thought it looks like an innertube setup! I wish I could post a picture, it looks strange to me. The finish of the metal shaft looks to be the same as the wheel.

Metal valve stems come either with a rubber grommet (regular pass. cats & trucks), or a simple silicone washer inside to seal to the rim. Campagnolos have a small 1/2" hole, so to run such stems, one drills out the rim, or uses the ones with the washer inside the rim. I've seen motorcycle stems used (also metal) and there's one stem sold for rice-rockets that is close-to-flush with the rim, and uses a tiny pin-spanner wrench to untighten the cap. .Dunno how well it works keeping air in the tires, but it sure keeps kids fron stealing the caps for their bicycles!

They are BF Goodrich Radial T/As.

Thanks Jack, a washer inside the rim, that explains it.