Highest psi to seat a tyre and any blow offs?

[KungFuPanda]

Another thread about a damaged bead has led me to remember a fitting scenario back in my teenage days when the tyre fitters couldn't get one of my new tyres to seat. The tyre shop owner cockily walked over and inflated the tyre to a dangerously high level to seat the tyre. Nothing happened but I was cowering around the corner as the "pop" always makes me jump.

I've seen youtube videos where the tyres explode, especially truck tyres.

So has anyone got any amusing stories around this topic?

[Digby]

My friend once focused more on chatting to us than the Psi he was putting into his Raleigh Grifter rear tyre at a petrol station years ago (back when such things were allowed and nobody cared)

That sure went bang

[66mpg]

Kennings in Worthing had a steel cage in the corner of the workshop that truck wheels were placed in while the tyre was inflated to seat the beads in an effort to contain the larger lumps if it all went pear-shaped.

[Sump]

Lazy. Should remove the tyre, clean the rim edges and relube them.

[Turkish91]

Some of our car tyres at work max the machine out at around 4.5bar and will not quite have seated, we tend to re-soap them and if that doesn't work just leave them for 5-10mins and they eventually go.

Not a funny story in the slightest but my Dad once went to an accident at a local garage. Fitter had been inflating a lorry tyre with it flat on the ground, stood with one leg on top of it. It went bang and sent him some 30ft up to the workshop roof, breaking both his legs somewhere along the way. When my Dad arrived the guy was on the floor squealing, with his overalls in tatters where the pressure had blown them apart. Weirdly the thing that sticks with him most was the cartoon-style silhouette on the ceiling where the guy had impacted and wiped away some of the grime and soot!

[lexusboy]

Fitted some tyres to a RR. Can't remember exact size but they were low profile 22s and they took 115psi to bead

[CubanPete]

Walking to lunch one day, heard a big bang on my route. As I rounded the corner a lorry had had a blow out. It was a residential road of traditional victorian terraced houses, half a dozen of them had smashed front windows!

[HustleRussell]

Turkish91 said:

Some of our car tyres at work max the machine out at around 4.5bar and will not quite have seated, we tend to re-soap them and if that doesn't work just leave them for 5-10mins and they eventually go.

lexusboy said:

Fitted some tyres to a RR. Can't remember exact size but they were low profile 22s and they took 115psi to bead

Did those tyres not say "NEVER INFLATE ABOVE XX PSI TO SEAT THE BEADS" on them? Or "MAXIMUM PRESSURE YY PSI"?

[Turkish91]

HustleRussell said:

Did those tyres not say "NEVER INFLATE ABOVE XX PSI TO SEAT THE BEADS" on them? Or "MAXIMUM PRESSURE YY PSI"?

Hence why they max our machine... 4.5bar = 65psi. IIRC most regular car tyres say 60 or 70 psi on the sidewall.

115psi is a bit raving though!

[HustleRussell]

Things must've moved on, I rarely fit any tyres with a profile lower than 55 and 40PSI always does the job.

[red_slr]

As always Live Leak has plenty of examples

NSFW

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=cb1_1403968026

Turkish91 said:

stood with one leg on top of it. It went bang and sent him some 30ft up to the workshop roof,

See 1 min in.


If you ever hear a truck tyre making strange creaking or unzipping noises do NOT go near it. As you can see on the video above people do the opposite!

[anonymous-user]

I'm a cheapskate and want to keep costs down to a minimum, so was going to fit tyres myself. I think i'll give that a miss.

[Gafferjim]

HGV tyres used to always be filled with air inside a cage due to the construction of the wheel itself. The actual wheel was in 3 pieces, the main part of the wheel with one rim side, then the tyre was fitted by just sliding it on, next the other rim side was put in place, this was then held in place by what can only be described as a large circlip, If the "circlip" didn't seat correctly, the whole lot would go bang when inflated and the second rim & circlip would go flying across the workshop maiming / killing anyone that was in its way. HGV tyres are inflated to 90 - 120lbs, that' why when they blow whilst running, the whole tyre is blown apart, some thing you very rarely see with car tyres due to the much lower pressure. HGV tyres are still inflated in a cage "just in case"

http://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image...

Edited by Gafferjim on Sunday 22 January 21:40

[The Wookie]

Evora 20" rears are a pain to seat and we tended to try and avoid over soaping them as it would affect the pressure rise on track.

There was only one cage on site over on the production side, knowing them they'd likely be cringing with their back to the tyre inflating it at arms length rather than walk them all the way over to it! Never heard of one popping though

[liner33]

Digby said:

My friend once focused more on chatting to us than the Psi he was putting into his Raleigh Grifter rear tyre at a petrol station years ago (back when such things were allowed and nobody cared)

That sure went bang

My uncle had a petrol station in South Wales in the 80's and kids used to over inflate their pushbike tyres on a regular basis. I once saw a Raleigh chopper go a few feet off the ground when the rear tyres let go .

We once had a hell of a job getting a 12" wide slick to get on the bead at the drag strip . We ended up using a 232bar dive cylinder and a racket strap to pop it on, scary times

[shakindog]

Tyres should be inflated in a cage of some sort in case of catastrophic failure.
Although it has been known for them to get to well over 100psi plus to seat.
Not the best idea to be stood over the wheel just in case.
Tyre blow outs aren't pretty and can be very destructive and have killed plenty of folk over the years have a look on you tube plenty on their.

[MuscleSaloon]

HustleRussell said:

Things must've moved on, I rarely fit any tyres with a profile lower than 55 and 40PSI always does the job.

With car stuff it does seem the lower the profile the worse they can be. Individual rim design seems to make a difference too. Every now and then you'll get say 40 series tyres on a certain set of rims that will take 70 -80 psi to seat.

[Steve93]

I've had 90psi in a tyre to get it to seat, not fun.

Powder coated wheels with low profile tyres seem to be the worst, I can only imagine with the thicker layer of powder coat rather than paint it's just fractionally larger so makes everything that bit tighter.

[timberman]

when I was a young lad back in the early eighties I was on a yts scheme and got placed at a builders yard in the garage where all company vans, lorries dumper trucks, cement mixers etc were looked after.

being young and inexperienced I was never given anything important to do and usually ended up helping someone else or making tea

One day I was tasked with repairing a bunch of tyres which had been removed from wheel barrows, there must have been about a dozen, some i managed to fit patches to and others I just fitted new inner tubes. after finishing I decided to fill them back up with air so set to with the air gun, only I read the recommended pressure wrong,

I can't remember what pressure I was putting in them but I'd been filling them up and chucking them in a corner when someone came over and said they could hear noises coming from the pile of wheels and checked the gauge on the air gun for the one I was filling up.

cue a bunch of people jumping for cover and some very loud bangs as several of my newly repaired tyres went bang.