Exploding tire experiment

I had a 17.5” used tire blow up on me once. I mounted it on a brand new 17” rim. The customer was a cheapskate. Bought used tires at a junkyard. They were the wrong size for his split rims. So he spent more money than originally saved by buying 4 new solid rims. I was 17 yrs old at the time. I used a regular coats auto tire machine to mount them. I had a bad habit of taking the threaded cone off once a tire sealed the bead, and then finishing putting air in to the required amount. It saved every bit of 2 seconds on installation time. I was fast! Lol. I recall the gauge reading roughly 20 lbs. when it blew, and flew off the machine at least 10 feet into the air. I had my hands resting on the tire when it blew. I thought I had lost all my fingers. I couldn’t feel them at all. That’s why I say, it’s all about developing good safety habits. Especially true when driving. Being able to react automatically without having time to think about it. All about habits.

 

I thought I heard him say 45bar.

Had to look it up.

650 psi.

 

Only takes 40 psi to make an explosion big enough to deform a cage. That is why the safety placard says to not exceed 40 until beads have been seated.

 

I have changed many tires, more in my youth than today.

On some automotive tires I have had to over-inflate some just to get the beads to seat. Always made me very nervous putting 50-60 even 70 psi in a tire rated for max 35 or 40.

When the bead snaps out makes my heart skip. Only way to get them, no matter how much lube.

 

####… We had a safety inflator cage for aircraft tires in the Navy. One day we wanted to see how long it would take an inter tube to blow up in it. So we set it up and inflated it slowly, the inter tube only, not a rim/tire set. It expanded to the point it was just coming out through the cage and then boooooommmmm. It exploded so loud and with so much pressure it was heard around the huge hangar building we were in at NAS Jacksonville. We had people coming from all over to see what was going on… Then of course I got called into the Senior Chiefs office to explain WTF we were doing… I told him we were demonstrating with just a tube only to show how absolutely devastating it would be if it were an actual tire and rim exploding and we needed these young kids to see how horrific it would be if they didn’t follow safety measures. #### if it didn’t fly and no one got in trouble. lol.

Then I got out of Navy and low and behold the massive corporation I worked for did not have safety inflators for on aircraft tires and dudes were just hooking up nitrogen and a gooseneck and trusting the regulator on nitrogen bottle. That changed ASAP after a chat with the supervisors and explaining what it would be like when you have to clean someone’s guts off the hangar wall.