Tire inflation cages

Mace Canute · Jul 21, 2010

A gentleman on HomeShopMachinist (thank you, Hap) posted this website that has a few pics and videos that show what happens when a tire explodes from being over inflated, even though they are in tire cages. Downright scary!

Edit to say: Since this is a company that services the aviation world, it's fair to say the tires are also aircraft tires, and would likely have many times the inflation pressures that one would associate with vehicle tires. One website cited a rated pressure of 180 psi for a tire with a rated load of 30,100 lbs. They mentioned that when aircraft tires are used on helicopters, The maximum allowable inflation pressure is 1.8 times the rated inflation pressure or 45% of the specified burst pressure, whichever is lower. Some serious pressures involved to actually burst one of those tires!

kebo · Jul 22, 2010

My only "tire exploding while being inflated story":
When I was teen living in my hometown, a fellow working in a tireshop (for autos) was inflating a tire one day. It's been so long ago I don't remember if he was using a tire cage or not but I want to say he wasn't using one. Anyway, the tire exploded on him and it literally blew him about 10ft up into the rafters and he got lodged up in them. They had to call the rescue people to get him down and take him to the hospital.

RoyJackson · Jul 23, 2010

Aircraft tires can be pretty high pressure. The old F-4 Phantom (operational from the mid-1960's) main gear tire pressure for shipboard use was 450 PSI.
We used nitrogen in them, BTW. You never inflated a tire standing next to it...always forward or aft (if it did explode, you'd get hit by the tire parts, not the wheel shrapnel). I reckon that was safer, but even then the injuries could be substantial since those tires were 26 ply. Worn out F-4 main gear tires are frequently seen on agricultural wagons now. I wouldn't be surprised if Soundguy has a few on his equipment.

We had an F-4 belly in several miles north of Naples, Italy (this was in 1975 give or take a year). The main gear was broken off the aircraft and we didn't know how many wheel bolts (split rim wheels with 24 bolts holding it together) may have sheared. Nobody wanted to get near it. Ended up, we had a marine shoot the tire to deflate it.

As far as cages....used them in the tire shop (both ashore and shipboard). Sometimes we'd have them while ashore but rarely were they available for flightdeck use aboard a carrier.

RollTideRam · Jul 27, 2010

My Dad told me a story when I was a kid. They told the new guy at work to use the tire cage when airing up some semi tires. They looked over and saw him inside the cage with the tire leaned up to it. JC

tractorsanmore · Jul 30, 2010

Around 30 yrs. ago I was inflating a 7.50 x 16 split rim tire in a cage and it blew apart ( didn't have split ring on correctly ) this tire only held about 60 psi and it was loud when it blew ) scared the heck out of me and even bowed the cage a little . Boss came over and made me take it apart and fix it while I was still shaking and kinda deaf . That was the first and last split rim wheel that blew on me .

firefighter jim · Jul 30, 2010

Like Roy stated, We were taught (USAF) to air up aircraft tires fore and aft and never facing wheel. Tire shop on base used cages to air up after tire and wheel assemblies were put together. I was a crew chief on a F111A, 1968-1972.

RoyJackson · Jul 31, 2010

firefighter jim said:
Like Roy stated, We were taught (USAF) to air up aircraft tires fore and aft and never facing wheel. Tire shop on base used cages to air up after tire and wheel assemblies were put together. I was a crew chief on a F111A, 1968-1972.

Our tire shops took the assemblies to operating pressure for a period of time (check for leaks), but built up assemblies were never stored at full operating pressure.

tractorsanmore wrote: ...split rim tire in a cage and it blew apart ( didn't have split ring on correctly)

Aircraft split rim wheels were just that, two halves bolted together. The wheel type you describe were called "demountable flange". The locking ring was just inboard one of the flanges.

Wis Bang · Aug 2, 2010

One summer during college they traded in 45 tractors. The companies tire service sent us two flatbed loads of "run offs"; tires that couldn't be patched, sectioned +/or re-treaded again. We removed all the good drive tires from the trades and installed these junk tires.

It was 1972 and Split rims had just been outlawed so alot of these were worn split rims & we were instructed to place them on the inside position. They were inflated to about 25lbs and the rim splits were worn eough that we needed to use sledgehammers to get them in position.

Two college kids w/ 8lb hammers held at arms length bumping them in place. After the spacer was also hammered on we would mount the outside tire and tighten the lugs b/4 clipping on an airline and airing up those 'will pop' tires...

I'd bet Mack ended up replacing all those rims b/4 the trades went out again.

schmism · Aug 8, 2010

I love how they give fun exciting dramatic figures for forces involved.... but leave out something as simple (and very meaningful) what pressure each tire failed at.