Tubeless conversion for the Royal Enfield Himalayan 450

It has been 20 days since I completed the conversion, and I have covered over 800km with this setup.

BHPian bikerbaba recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The lovely tubeless rims for the Himalayan 450 are unlikely to be available soon. Our local Chandigarh dealer said I should not expect them before Diwali/EOY.

I was planning an off-road course with a few friends and wanted to get some tubeless setup before I embarked on it.

Yes, I know that tubeless Rims are not recommended for off-road adventures, but this is not real off-roading, and the Himalayan 450 is not a real off-roader. I tour a lot and have already clocked nearly 7k km on the bike since I got it on February 20th.

Some friends I have in the local Harley group recommended a "Jugaar" setup by Ranjeet Randhawa.

Ranjeet Randhawa is a local auto enthusiast who lives in Kharar, a town near Chandigarh. Using the same method, he has successfully converted dozens of Harley Davidsons, some old Triumph Tigers, and his own BMW motorcycle to tubeless setups.

He did the Tubeless conversion for my Himalayan 450, and I am glad to announce that it has been a resounding success.

The conversion process used the standard commercial self-healing solutions available with many brands, including Way2Speed and his special, "self-curing technique". He did not feel comfortable sharing what he was using, and with the number of positive reviews running into dozens, I did not really bother.

• Price: ₹5000 for the Himalayan 450, both Rims
• Time taken to complete the conversion: 24 hours

Process followed:

1. Rims are taken off the bike, tyres are taken off
2. Rims are washed with water to remove debris/residue
3. The inside of the rims are scrubbed with scotch brite to make the surface a bit coarse
4. Rims are dried completely
5. The spoke ends are covered with an adhesive-like paste and left to cure for 2-3 hours
6. The Rim is "bandaged and glued" with adhesive strips
7. The edges of the strip are glued
8. The edges are smoothened after waiting an hour or so
9. The rims are left to cure for a minimum of 12 hours, ideally 24h
10. Tyres are inflated to 40PSI instead of 32 and are checked for any leaks

Post-conversion update

It has been 20 days since I completed the conversion, and I have covered over 800km with this setup, including a 40km off-road rocky course that allowed me to test the setup for its intended purpose.

I got a puncture on the rear wheel during my off-road run, and my first thought was - "did it leak??" but it hadn't. The setup did not leak air from anywhere.

The 2" long nail I picked up somewhere caused the puncture, and I was able to fix it with my car puncture kit. Here's an image of the "tubeless puncture" I mended on the way. It took me 5 minutes to extract the nail and use a standard ₹300 tubeless puncture kit to fix it and fill the air in the tyre again.

Although this is not a perfect setup, the sheer number of people who had gotten this done and used it for over 4 years made me take the plunge instead of waiting for the tubeless rims.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.