pin hole in bladder

any tricks to find a small pin hole in your float tube bladder

Squirt bottle with soap and water spray it on a little at a time and wait for it to buddle where the air is coming out. Of course, you need to remove the bladder and fill it up with air but I think that goes with outs saying.

pin holes have to be the worst holes to ever find. i will take my time over the weekend an find it! thanks for the help

Good luck with Rucker.

I thought I had a pinhole a while back and it turned out that the rubber O-Ring had flattened out enough to leak. I picked up some new valves and was good to go. I still don't know where to find the O-Ring.

Just a heads up.

I learned a very simple common sense trick:

I used to apply the soapy solution on the out side of the inflated bladder ...

But now I make up a soapy solution with a few drops of iodine or red food color, pour it inside the bladder through the removed Boston valve hole, reinstall the Boston valve, inflate the bladder and roll the red dyed soapy solution around the inside of the bladder and watch for red bubbles.

Be certain to use a permanent marker to circle mark the located puncture.

This works great on the tougher to find pin holes.

Good luck,

SP Dan     <"))><

What a great tip, Dan!

I tried spraying soapy water on the outside and got nowhere, so I sent it back to the factory and they found several pinholes. The problem is pinholes don't really bubble all that much and it seems simple, but it doesn't always work.

It never occurred to me to put the water on the inside, but I can tell from just thinking about it that it's obviously the way to go. Any little leakage should be easy to spot.

i found my pin hole by running the water hose over the bladder after i tried the soapy water trick. it was quick. next time i have a pin hole i'm going strait for the water hose.

Glad you found it thanks for posting this and we found some new ideas because of this.