Preservation of Original Spare Tire

[Hans2012]

I recently installed a full set of Coker Phoenix reproduction whitewalls on my car, including a spare.  The original Phoenix whitewall tire and wheel were in the trunk and appear not to have been on the ground previously.  I am looking for suggestions on how best to preserve the original tire - I assume that storage in my Texas attic would not be the best solution.   Should it be fully inflated?  Should it be stored horizontally?  Etc. 

Thanks in advance.

Regards
John

[Jordan]

John, can't help you on the tire because I don't know.  However, can you post some pictures of your car with the whitewalls.  Are they wide?  Have only seen the wide ones on Garry's and they look great.

[SilverSpear]

Everything related to rubber, I simply either soak or apply ATF fluid over it and seal it in air tight plastic bags.
For the spare tyre, I would do the same, and probably wrap it with food plastic film and store it in a dry place.

[Garry]

And ensure they are kept out of daylight as that will harden up the tire.

[wwheeler]

All rubber products are not the same. I would be concerned about using ATF on tires because that type of rubber probably isn't as oil resistant as say the rubber for hoses. Tires do not typically come in contact with oil and therefore would not need to be resistant to that. Here is an article explaining everything you would want to know about tire rubber.
http://www.toyojapan.com/tire-technology/tire-materials/
Of the materials they list that are used in tires, all are poor when it comes to oil resistance. 

I know of at least three things that degrade tire rubber: UV, ozone and heat. UV would be sunlight as Garry mentioned. Ozone is everywhere so storing in a sealed bag would limit that. My concern is the type of bag that would yellow and possibly stain the tire. Heat is common sense.

I probably would store it NOT pressurized or at the most with just a few PSI. Full pressure puts stress on the rubber and could makes cracks worse. You would want to store the tire so the weight is off the tire so it won't compression set. The bad news is that rubber degrades slowly over time and it is not a reversilble process. So what is done is done but you can prevent further degredation. 

I hope that helps.

[Hans2012]

Thanks to all of you for the input - this is an amazing confederation.   I will deflate the tire somewhat and store it horizontally in a dark storage closet.  I will also post some photographs shortly.

Best regards
John

[SilverSpear]

All rubber products are not the same. I would be concerned about using ATF on tires because that type of rubber probably isn't as oil resistant as say the rubber for hoses. Tires do not typically come in contact with oil and therefore would not need to be resistant to that. Here is an article explaining everything you would want to know about tire rubber.
http://www.toyojapan.com/tire-technology/tire-materials/

What about grease instead of ATF?

[wwheeler]

Another interesting part in that article is about the protective wax. I have talked about that before in other posts. The "horrible white stuff on the rubber surface that is impossible to remove". That is the protective wax and when you remove it, you lose the ozone protection. It does look bad so you might be able to use something like 303 with a UV screen in it to compensate for the lost wax protection.

Unfortunetly, grease is still a petroleum product and would do the same as ATF. ATF is more aggressive though. Many people think you can revive rubber once it has aged. I don't think so. If you add something to hard, degraded rubber and it feels softer, that is probably because the added product caused swelling. A material that has swelled feels softer but the properties have been compromised. Old or new rubber, swelling is not a good thing.

The best strategy is to protect the rubber when it is brand new. You can still protect older rubber, but won't be as good as new rubber.