Tire blowing off rim while being aired up.

   / Tire blowing off rim while being aired up. #3  
Had a cousin get hit in the chest by a rim several years ago. Didn't kill him, but it was close. Use a cage with split rims, keep body parts out of the way on the rest.
 
   / Tire blowing off rim while being aired up. #4  
I had that happen to me while I blew it up in a cage. The tire was full 100psi plus. I put my hand on the tread to lean it on the other side of the cage to check the lock ring. As soon as it touched the other side it blew. My face hurt so I ran to a mirror and it was covered with rust flakes but no blood. My ears hurt for few days but no other health issues. It is definitely a learning experience. I get a little nervous just being beside the tires on a tractor trailer while driving the interstate. They are nothing to play with for sure!
 
   / Tire blowing off rim while being aired up. #5  
Saw this this morning.

 
   / Tire blowing off rim while being aired up. #6  
I didn't think split rims were used anymore. Shows how out of touch I am.
 
   / Tire blowing off rim while being aired up. #7  
Split rims are on their way out. But thousands are still in use. The .5 designation is for new non split rims. 20/25 years ago "Bud" rims as used on most 40 footers were blowing on the highway. It was well known that they could blow when being inflated.

With that being said, I was in the business for a long time and never had a problem. Didn't have a cage but used a lot of caution and double checked everything, while the pressure was low.. 3 Piece Chevy's were the best and if done correctly were nearly impossible for them to blow. Ford's were poorly designed and difficult to tell if it was seated (Rim) correctly. Dodge was a little better than Ford but not much.

Even your modern passenger car tire can blow off, but that is quite rare.
 
   / Tire blowing off rim while being aired up. #8  
Wow, that guy was double lucky!!! He dodged any flying pieces at the moment of the explosion, then when the 150lb tire/wheel assy came back down, it missed landing on top of him. I bet his ears were ringing for a day or two though.
 
   / Tire blowing off rim while being aired up. #9  
I have seen some of the safety videos and have personally witnessed 2 episodes of tires exploding (actually rim failures).
On sprint cars we run beadlocks that are bolted to the rim, one of the teams that were parked next to us had drilled the bolt heads to save weight and when trying to seat the other bead used a little to much air. Luckily they only ended up with a bunch of little dents from the bolt heads and a larger one from the tire in the trailer roof. The other time was again at the racetrack when the local tire guy was trying to stretch a tire with air pressure when the rim bead folded over, heard the explosion in time to see the tire at least 30 feet in the air. He had his arms over the tire when it let go and got 2 broken arms which was lucky, it could have been fatal.
 

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