be careful when airing up tractor tires
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Topic: be careful when airing up tractor tires
Posted By: Bob(FL)
Subject: be careful when airing up tractor tires
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 8:30pm
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I was reading about a fellow on the drag racing forum that was airing up a tractor tire and it exploded, blew out windows across the street, he has lost one leg, has liver damage and is in a coma. He is a tough ole man if you don't believe me look at the size of this tractor
tire that exploded while he was kneeled down in front of it. These 4 wheel drive
Tractors are huge units. I was told the explosion blew out windows of houses across the street. The entire outside bead is missing from the tire. 
Bob had a tire to blow up on him and as of right now he has lost his left leg
just below his knee and his liver is split along with several other injuries. He
is in extreme critical condition but stable right now. They are trying to keep
him alive and take small steps. He is going to need alot of prayers guys!  http://drr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/75460652/m/2807052506 - http://drr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/75460652/m/2807052506 |
Replies:
Posted By: Dave(inMA)
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 8:36pm
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Very sorry to hear about this. Will keep Bob in my prayers. Hope the news gets better. ------------- WC, CA, D14, WD45 |
Posted By: Auntwayne
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 8:52pm
| Man, that is a shame, terrible accident. Definitely will be praying for him !!! |
Posted By: Jacob (WI,ND)
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 9:01pm
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I'm not sure how to write this without sounding like a smarty pants, and I'm not trying to be, I'm just trying to understand. But how can this be when tractor tires (especially rears) have so low pressure in them? Am I missing something? I do hope that this man recovers. ------------- Jacob Swanson 1920 6-12; 1925,1926 20-35 longfenders; 1925,1926 15-25's; 1927,1929 20-35 shortfenders; C; B's; IB; WC's; WD; WD45 |
Posted By: Chalmersbob
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 9:03pm
| That is sad to hear. But he must have exceded the 12 to 14 psi limit to explode like that. Wish him a speedy recovery, Bob |
Posted By: DSeries4
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 9:19pm
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Something like that happened to a guy around here, but he got off lucky. I heard he had his tire upto 40 psi. ------------- '49 G, '54 WD45, '55 CA, '56 WD45D, '57 WD45, '58 D14, '59 D14, '60 D14, '61 D15D, '66 D15II, '66 D21II, '67 D17IV, '67 D17IVD, '67 190XTD, '73 620, '76 185, '77 175, '84 8030, '85 6080 |
Posted By: jhid
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 9:36pm
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a guy in our old car club was inflating a tire on his Model T and when it blew up it took off the tips of a few of his fingers, he was very lucky ------------- red and green are nice for christmas, but orange is all year round http://www.canadianantiquetractor.com/tractorforum/ |
Posted By: Pat the Plumber CIL
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 9:47pm
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Have heard of trhose clamp on air chucks causing that to happen when person filling tire walks away and gets distracted.Don't believe that is what happened as this man must have been close.
Prayers from cent Il. for this man and his family ------------- You only need to know 3 things to be a plumber;Crap rolls down hill,Hot is on the left and Don't bite your fingernails 1964 D-17 SIV 3 Pt.WF,1964 D-15 Ser II 3pt.WF ,1960 D-17 SI NF,1956 WD 45 WF. |
Posted By: dpalmer
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 10:41pm
| if i aint mistaken 14 pounds per square inch...aint there alot of square inches in a tire like that ? |
Posted By: dpalmer
Date Posted: 28 Jul 2011 at 11:00pm
| 14 psi in square ft of space is 2016 pounds of pressure ...would someone coreect me if im wrong ..i knew a man that wa delimbed due to yuke tire exploding on him |
Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 1:41am
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Your calculation is correct- One square foot of surface is 12x12 or 144 square inches. Multiply by 14psi, and you have 2016lbs of force. Now, a single ply of low-grade steel cord in the sidewall will present AT MINIMUM, an average tensile strength of over 12,000psi. A 4-ply tire sidewall will yield at around 50,000psi. What we have, under this type of a circumstance, is either a very, very, very, very serious failure of the bead overlap or bead section shape, or a failure of the rim... AND an extreme applied pressure... and I'll stress EXTREME. This kind of thing happens at AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE higher than rated pressure... like... 120psi instead of 12psi. If you take a tractor tire, pump it to 20psi, and then stab a big hole in it... HARD... the air will rush out. If you drive over a sharp metal spike, same result. If you put sideways force on the spike, the tire's structure will deflect and UNSEAT THE BEAD before causing a rupture, and in doing so, the tire just goes flat. The most common mistake in a tire rupture, is as noted- the 'lock on' type air chuck, typically connected to an unregulated bulk high-pressure compressor. The PROPER way, if using a lock-on, is to have a regulator set to a desired pressure, followed by a pressure relief valve set to slightly above max. That way, lock it on, and walk away, it will not present a pressure problem. The second most common, is to misjudge the amount of time it takes to charge up a tire. If the tire is NOT ballasted, the volume of airspace available to pressurize is quite large, so you'll be filling for a good long time... you'll sit there with the air hose for 20 minutes or so before making just a few pounds' change. IF the tire is loaded with fluid, however, the available space is very small, so the air-charge time is very short. A tire that's totally filled with ballast will go from atmospheric, to full air reservoir pressure in literally... a heartbeat. There is one interesting problem that occurs under certain circumstances, but I don't think it really applies here... but it's called "diesel effect". Say you spray some volatile compound into a closed chamber, and then apply air-pressure RAPIDLY to the chamber... the volatile compound, given the proper conditions, will ignite, just like Herr Diesel described in his 'heat-engine' thesis. hard to make that kind of pressure rise with a tractor tire... too much volume, not enough airflow, and not high enough pressure... but IF there was a volatile compound in the tire, and something ELSE happened to ignite it (static electricity?), then you could get an incredibly high pressure, very quickly. If there were more detailed pictures, it would be easier to identify the failure, but my gut feeling, based on what I CAN see, is that excessive pressure caused the bead-wrap to fail, stripping the sidewall plies away from the beading wire. The only question left, is wether the bead of the tire was improperly wrapped, or if the rubber formula or process was not properly done. Frankly, with many of these imported tires, I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this happen, but that machine looks awfully new and green for carrying low-budget imported tires. Important to realize that once the tire BEGINS to rupture, the tire starts losing pressure immediately... and in doing so, there is insufficient sidewall pressure to continue a rupture. In order to come apart as you see here, the bead has to fail around most of the circumference simultaneously. A tube-type tire will go a little bit further, simply because the tube causes a high-stress edge, but at that much force, the tube will rupture so soon, that a circumferential rupture cannot fully 'wrap'. Back when lock-rings were VERY common, guys would get killed by being cut in half by a lockring that became unseated and popped off the rim. Even still, the need for putting tires in a cage when mounting up, is of critical importance... and it's because the tire is applied very high pressures from the git-go. The most likely time for a tire bead or bead-seating failure, is on the very first air-up after a mounting or re-mounting action. Many guys would get in a rush, and instead of swabbing down the bead with lubricant or sealer, would mount 'em dry, and just overpressure to get the bead seated. better to soapy-water 'em so they slip into place without substantial strain. I feel sorry for the poor guy, but this didn't have to happen as it did. I hope the insurance adjusters investigate to extreme detail, and if they find a tire manufacture issue, it gets resolved quickly. Nobody needs a tire so cheap that it's dangerous. |
Posted By: David Maddux
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 3:47am
| I have split rims on the back of my A. When I inflated them, I used a pressure regulator set a 15psi, used the clamp on chuck and left the building. I came back when I no longer heard air moving through the lines. Dave. |
Posted By: B26240
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 7:21am
| Dave K -- very interesting explanation, I used to work with a guy that sprayed either insid 11r22.5's and throw a match in there to get them seated on the bead, I refused to stay in shop when he did this, your explosive mixture theory I feel should be checked out! |
Posted By: Dave(inMA)
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 7:33am
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DaveKamp - I'll add my thanks for taking the time to post a thorough and interesting description of "tire airing-up dynamics". I've always been careful airing up even small tires the first time. All of this just makes me more cautious - no good reason to not set up a relief valve and just walk away like David Maddux. ------------- WC, CA, D14, WD45 |
Posted By: Henry se/k!
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 7:56am
| If possiable, when mounting tires on vehicle place lock ring to inside.I have seen wheels explode while they are being mounted long after they were aired up. Also they should be treated with care when being moved around, loaded in back of pickup,ect! |
Posted By: 427435
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 8:03am
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Tire inflation can be deadly. Years ago, when I was the safety and reliability engineer at the tractor division, I read a very sad field report of a tire accident. A young guy was installing a tractor tire that was laying flat on the garage floor. He was standing on the wheel/tire. The tire blew and he was crushed to death between the wheel/tire and the ceiling. I like the idea of a clip-on chuck, a pressure regulator, and leaving the area!! ------------- Mark B10 Allis, 917 Allis, 7116 Simplicity, 7790 Simplicity Diesel, GTH-L Simplicity Ignorance is curable-----stupidity is not. |
Posted By: Lonn
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 8:07am
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A neighbor and friend of mine was killed by a split rim truck tire 20 years ago almost to the day. It was the inside dual on a flatbed truck he was filling when it blew. It stripped the studs that held the outside wheel on and the outside wheel and inside ring caught him in the head and nearly removed his entire face and threw him up against and flattened to the ground a nearby gasoline pump. He was 19. Not a good day. ------------- -- --- .... .- -- -- .- -.. / .-- .- ... / .- / -- ..- .-. -.. . .-. .. -. --. / -.-. .... .. .-.. -.. / .-. .- .--. .. ... - Wink I am a Russian Bot |
Posted By: farmtoybuilder
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 8:14am
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I pray that he recovers. I was lucky in my younger days (God was watching over me). I was airing up a 14LX16 front tire on tractor setting outside of the shop with clamp on air chuck. It was completely flat And I when into the shop for something ? And all of a sudden we heard this huge explosion and sound of gravel hitting the building. 1st thoughts was someone crashed, as major road runs in front of buildings. But we found the tire exploded. Using a regulator is great idea! We'll have to do that! and stand away from them. ------------- 5 different TT-10's,5 TT-18's Terra Tigers,B-10,2 B-207's,B-110,2 B-112's,HB-112,B-210,B-212,HB212,2 Scamp's & Homilite T-10. Still hunting NICE HB-112 & anything Terra Tiger & Trailers for them. |
Posted By: jaybmiller
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 8:26am
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Years ago when those 'fix a flat tire in a can ' came out it took awhile but eventually someone got killed. The tire kid or mechanic at a shop was told to put a plug into a tire a customer came in with.Customer didn't think of telling anyone he'd 'fixed the flat' with one of those spray bombs( heck..who would ??). When the gut put the tool in to clean out the hole, he either hit the cord(steel belted radial) or scraped the nail.BAMM... tossed him against the wall( I think he died),other's lost hearing for a few days. It took the government a few months to ban the cans. Seems they used isobutane and propane to propellthe patching 'slime' into the tire!
I'm sorry for anyone who gets hurt changing tires but common sense has to be used, read the warning labels and follow proper proceedures. I know we ALL have skirted steps but eventually yiu'll pay for being sloppy , careless or the 'it'll never happen to me'attitude.
------------- 3 D-14s,A-C forklift, B-112 Kubota BX23S lil' TOOT( The Other Orange Tractor) Never burn your bridges, unless you can walk on water |
Posted By: Bill Long
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 8:31am
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My thoughts and prayers are with him for a prompt and complete recovery. You know, I was changing a D-10 tire to an industrial one since we were using it to mow lawns. It was leaning against me while I blew it up waiting for the beat to pop on the rim. The bead popped, the tire jumped and hit me on the chin. I saw stars!! However, I remembered where I was with the tire leaning on me so I stood strong to hold the tire. Near thing. Do be careful out there. It was not a gigantic tire like the one above but it just goes to show you can never be too careful. Good Luck! Bill Long |
Posted By: Brian Jasper co. Ia
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 8:54am
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Early in my career I worked at a Firestone and a Goodyear tire shop. We had a guy at the Firestone shop get knocked out and a gash in his head from flying debris. Tim was breaking down a tire that had fix-a-flat in it. One spark was all it took. It was like a bomb went off. Broke lights and windows. Later when I got bumped by seniority, I went around the corner to the Goodyear shop. One of the commercial guys had a split rim come apart in the cage while he was airing it up. Another one had a bus tire sidewall fail while he was filling it. They called it a zipper type failure. Best I can describe is it sounded like ripping a shirt and a loud whoosh. It put the guy on his back. Then there was the day I mounted 6 new Goodyear Wrangler radials before I found a good one. One of them had that shirt ripping sound. I can say I really don't miss working in a tire shop anymore. Another thing, I think a demo video was posted on Youtube, is never weld on a wheel rim with the tire on it. A fire can start inside the tire and build enough pressure to explode it. Whoever was doing the demo was using a large truck tire and a robot to do the welding. Maybe 30 seconds after the welding stopped, the gauge they had on the valve stem shot up and boom! Fire in the tire... ------------- "Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian." Henry Ford |
Posted By: bobkyllo
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 9:11am
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we do alot of tires and this is a very real posibility but what i have heard some of your guys say just sends chills up my spine. you guys say to use a regulator and clip on chuck. that is by far the most dangerous thing to do. we have a tire cage/bead breaker for truck tires and small tractor tires. it to has a regulator on it and clip on chuck. well it failed and filled the tire plum full (125 psi or so). well the tire blew out. it took out the whole door. at that time it was the whole door was glass. well it blew the glass at least 100 feet and into the nieghbors yard.
using the regulator is the worst idea around. cause what if that regulator fails and fills the tire full. and that tire by chance is barely holding that pressure and you roll it around and bump it and then it explodes. that will hurt you more.
at work there we have and air chuck with a built in guage. then we throw the hose away and make a new hose about 4 foot long and have a clip on chuck. so to get air in the tire you have to stand there and squeeze the air chuck. if you let go you stop inflating plain and simple.
as far as the split rims we put in just enough air to seat the ring usually 5 to 10 pounds. then we install the tire on the inside of the truck. put the out side tire on and air it up.
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Posted By: bill2260
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 9:35am
| I have aired lot of tires over theyears and luckily never had one explode. However, I have an old 357 grinder mixer that has old truck tires on it. Went up stairs in the barn to throw down some hay and noticed grinder setting cockeyed. Tire had exploded just sitting there. If you had been standing beside it could have been bad. Had tire pieces all over the barn floor. Bill |
Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 10:48am
Reread, Bill- I said to use a regulator FOLLOWED BY A PRESSURE RELIEF VALVE, then a clip on chuck. Reason for doing it this way, is specifically FOR the purpose of a failed regulator. The other reason, is so you can cage the tire and GO AWAY. Best yet, put the control valve, regulator, and PV on the other side of the sand-filled concrete-block wall, so you can not only watch it from a safe location, you can shut it down without being in the danger zone. Working with tires is just dangerous- no two ways about it. Most of it happens when mounting a new tire- that's when new tires get a genuine acid-test for proper manufacture, and when the technician gets a real-life test of the quality of his work. When tires come loose, the safest possible situation, is that NOBODY is around, and the tire... especially split-rim and lockring type, is surrounded by a cage that'll let the air leave rapidly, while stopping the tire, rim, hardware, and large fragments from traveling very far, very fast. My first experience with tire failures was going with my dad to visit a site to inspect and photograph a shop where a man had been crushed against the roof by a lockring and several injured by debris. My dad was an attorney representing one of the parties named (there were many). No cage. No soap. No control valve, no locking hose chuck, no gauge, no scatter screens... not even a pair of safety glasses to be found. They may have mounted 3,000 tires over the course of a year, and not had one single failure, not a single injury, nor a single problem. That one tire may have been good, or bad. The rim, possibly damaged. Lockring may have been damaged, or improperly installed. They may have done any number of things right or wrong. Doesn't matter. Guy's dead, buddies hurt, and there's a 20" bulge in the steel roof, with his hair and teeth still in it, with blood streaking down the inside of the truss. I was about 7 years old when I saw that... and when I asked my dad, he said something that I've never forgotten since: "Accidents don't happen for one reason- they happen as a result of several things all happening at the same time. Usually, many people are involved, and no one single reason makes it all happen, but when it's time, all the pieces are in place, and it happens." And he followed this with the other piece of wisdom that I've held very close: "Oftentimes, the mistakes are made in different places, at different times, by many other people. Sometimes, it's the last guy who's doing it, that puts in that last piece... but regardless, anyone who's around when that puzzle is complete, gets hurt." Use the locking filler, regulator, and pressure relief valve. Put a manual valve and gauge on the back side of a very heavy wall, put many large objects between you and the tire- stuff that will stop the heavy pieces. Laying the tire down flat isn't a bad idea, but realize that a high-pressure truck tire will jump about 30' straight up... and it's gonna come back down, too. And don't... and I mean DON'T... put 80psi into a 15psi tire 'just to seat the bead'. If it doesn't seat at it's proper pressure, it's because something is wrong. In contrary to what many guys say, tires are NOT made to be overpressured 'just for seating'. Here's a good read, not on agricultural, but on highway truck retreads: http://www.goodyear.ca/truck/pdf/radialretserv/Retread_S3_V.pdf |
bobkyllo wrote:Posted By: Brian Jasper co. Ia
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 12:48pm
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I like your Dad's quote Dave. Lots of truth in that. I still don't miss the tire shops, and I don't go out of my way to sell tires here. Long ago when you still saw split rims fairly common, and I saw that one blow while filling, I refused to work on any of them any more. ------------- "Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian." Henry Ford |
Posted By: ScottNC
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 4:01pm
| This happened at farm in NC not at the race track. This fellow does have a racecar but works as a mechanic on the farm. For some reason he tried to weld on the rim without removing the valve stem. He was seriously injured. He is still in an induced coma he lost his leg in the explosion but is expected to recover. Another fellow was walking nearby when the explosion happened and was injured as well. The blast was heard a half mile away. This accident was very bad but could have been worse. The tractor was sitting just outside the shop door. There were several others working in the shop at the time of the accident. This was a new tire that was put on in the spring not an older one.The tractor is a John Deere 8100. |
Posted By: Gerald J.
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 5:37pm
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Removing the valve stem isn't enough when welding on a rim. The tire has to be off too. Welding heat starts a reaction in the rubber which will make it explode with the valve stem removed too. There have been videos on that topic, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNZ4siYGkag may be one. Gerald J. |
Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 7:41pm
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Even without anything combustible inside the tire, the amount of expansion from superheated air, and outgassing from paint and tire rubber is crazy. Sad situation. Should not have happened. On any given day of the week, people break the laws. If a guy does something as simple as just jaywalking... - a policeman MAY cite and fine him for doing so... - Mother Nature sentences him to death via garbage truck. It ain't fair by OUR rules, but we don't make THE rules... we live, and unfortunately die... by Mother Nature's rules. |
Posted By: Hubert (Ga)engine7
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 9:17pm
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"Accidents don't happen for one reason- they happen as a result of
several things all happening at the same time. Usually, many people are
involved, and no one single reason makes it all happen, but when it's
time, all the pieces are in place, and it happens." DaveKamp, your Dad was very correct. In every safety course I have been through and every serious accident I have reviewed I have learned that it takes several things coming together at the same time for a serious accident to occur. If the small accidents start happening on a regular basis the big one is not far behind. Attitude has a great deal to do with safety. If the supervisors in an organization ignore the little safety violations and do not correct the things that contribute to an accident the big one is going to occur. ------------- Just an old country boy saved by the grace of God. |
Posted By: Bob(FL)
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 10:06pm
| scottnc, someone on the drag race site said that the tractor tire might have been filled with an alcohol mixture with maybe water or something else, may be why it blew up. |
Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 30 Jul 2011 at 12:08am
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There could've been any number of compounds inside the tire that could've caused this. Actually... one of the most scary compounds I can think of... would be... ...water... Obviously the picture doesn't show substantial evidence of water, but to explain- the weld temp on that rim would've resulted in temps in the 1000F or better range. Water in the envelope, even if pressurized to 15psi (1atm) would've been boiling violently... and that, my friends, would raise the pressure inside that tire to incredible levels VERY, VERY, VERY fast. The fortunate fact of fluid-filling, is that fluids, being non-compressible, would not store large quantities of potential energy... but if there's enough volume to make for a steam-dome... that would be really, really scary. Worse if the tire is only about a quarter-filled with water... it'd become a bomb in no time. |
Posted By: bobkyllo
Date Posted: 30 Jul 2011 at 7:03am
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i have been taught to never walk away from a tire when its being filled. even with a pressure relief valve things can go wrong. i just dont like the idea of putting all your trust in some man made "safety items". i like to be near it to listen to the tire. the tire will tell you everything. 9 times out of 10 it will make a sound or you can even feel the tire is poor. if your any kind of tire guy you will know to never leave water in the tire or to lube things up or to do some checking of the tires condition. |
Posted By: Dave H
Date Posted: 30 Jul 2011 at 7:55am
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Not to be as smrt A, but how can I be creful if I don't know what happened to create that disaster?
My first thought was an ether job. I donno?
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