Steve,

I can't tell by your description exactly where the leak is appearing. That said, I can offer this advice.

-lightly abrade the inside edges of the rim (sandpaper) before installing that rim strip adhesive tape, it has to have real good clean adhesion to the rim, once the sealant floats around inside the setup, the sealant can get under the rubber rimstrip and cause havoc with that rim tape if it is poorly installed. Don't cut a large hole for the valve stem, just a pencil tip sized hole, then push the valve stem through.

-Use new tires when doing first installation. (slomo and splat witnessed my learning about this last week as I tried to use an old favorite set of tires with Stans - they had some pin-holes that made initial seating difficult) Tires with fat wire beads seem to be the ticket for me, for example I have had better experience with non folding, non kevlar bead tires when using Stans, with DH tires being the best for easy floor pump filling seating of tire and filling results - IE No compressor required. After the sealant has set up - the system will handle 30-35 psi AND regular 4-5 foot drops with no problems- bottom line, the Stans will work, you just have to be patient till that initial layer of sealant has formed-It's so effective for me that I'll NEVER go back to tubes.

In fact, when I was running IRC Backcountry tires, (a folding wire bead tire) I HAD to use a compressor to seat the tire on the rim like you describe - the folds just wouldn't seat with a floorpump, where as I now run DH tires, and they seat after 5-6 floor pump strokes - nice and easy, and can even be seated with my frame pump!

I've been running Stans for over a year, and have found that in order to get this system working well, here's the best advice I can give- after you have gotten that pesky leak fixed (try putting a little extra sealant in that rear tire and pump it up hard and spend time rotating it -off bike- till leak seals) this is what you do-run the tires a little harder then you normally run them for 3-4 weeks of riding them - this allows the tires to be less likely to unseat from the rim and what happens is the sealant will slowly be drying in real thin layers throughout the whole inside of the setup. After that layer has formed, that's when the Stans delivers as advertised - you can now lower your tire pressure to a setting you normally run - and even lower -and experience no flats for the rest of the season-as well as added benefit of no pinch flatting should you run them a little lower then normal...In fact the more you ride, the more it layers up in there - hence the recommendation from Stans to add a little sealant (like a tablespoon) yearly to keep the system performing as spec'd. When i tried to check on them this winter, it took a long frustrating 20 minute to just get one tire bead un seated from the rim - the sealant had literally attached the tire bead to the rim...AND I experienced no flats since I've gotten them dial'd in...

Last week a friend running stans ran over a large spike with rear tire, it was making this awful "cling cling" noise as it went around hitting frame...well, he stopped (duh) and he pulled it out of his tire, (made sure to have the spike in 6 oclock position so sealant would be there to seal hole)- sure enough, just like it says, it sealed.
Mind you, we went riding after that for 4 hours Friday, and were doin drops and other fun stuff - no probs...

Any other questions - PM me.

C.P.