Quick Air Bolt in Tank

[Dolomiti]

I have a dumb question. I am going to run 31x10.5x15 tires. Although I will likely get a small compressor, I am really looking at picking up 1 (or 2) of these tanks.

Does anyone know, that if I take all my tires down to 15 PSI, will I have a problem getting all 4 back to 35 (or even 30) PSI with one of these tanks?

Here are the specs:

150 psi rated tank is ideal for air locker setups or running small air tools. Measuring 6" x 24", this tank can be easily mounted alongside or between frame rails. Five 1/4" NPT openings allow mounting in any position.

 

[grillmasterp]

With that setup -Compressor + storage tank, the only problem will be length of time it takes.
If that's a 2.5 ish gallon tank, your compressor will begin to cycle in order to fill up all 4 tires or the tank. (The tank alone won't be able to refill all 4 tires)
The time it takes to refill the tires will depend upon the output of the compressor.

 

[Dolomiti]

With that setup -Compressor + storage tank, the only problem will be length of time it takes.
If that's a 2.5 ish gallon tank, your compressor will begin to cycle in order to fill up all 4 tires or the tank. (The tank alone won't be able to refill all 4 tires)
The time it takes to refill the tires will depend upon the output of the compressor.

Ok, well let me clarify. Let's assume that I won't have a compressor on board, and will fill the tank at home or at the gas station. Will 2 tanks do what I would need it to do, fill up 4 tires from 15 to 30?

 

[Momrocks]

IMHO, no it won't air you back up on all four. I have not tried a 5 gal (or two 2.5s) but my pancake compressor with a two gallon res (blowing off at 110psi)will only air up one 245/75-16 from 13 to 35 psi before there is so little volume left that it won't make much difference on the second tire.

 

[Dolomiti]

IMHO, no it won't air you back up on all four. I have not tried a 5 gal (or two 2.5s) but my pancake compressor with a two gallon res (blowing off at 110psi)will only air up one 245/75-16 from 13 to 35 psi before there is so little volume left that it won't make much difference on the second tire.

Well I guess I will not do it then, and just go with a decent compressor and save the room undeneath for water storage.

 

[michaelgroves]

1 bar = 1 atmosphere = 14psi

Your tyres are about 75 litres each. So if you want to air up by 2 bar (from, say 0.5 bar to 2.5 bar), you'll need 150 litres of free air per tyre, PLUS the tank will still need to be at 2.5 bar or more when you're finished - the tank needs to be at greater pressure than the tyre.

It's a 10 litre tank. At 10 bar (~140PSI), that's equivalent to 100 litres of free air. But only the last 7.5 bar counts (because you need to end up with 2.5 bar in the tank), so it's actually only 75 litres of usable air per tank. Each tank can do half of one tyre.

(E and OE, of course!)

 

[rickc]

Dolomiti:

As long as you are just worried about airing up/down, a small compressor will work but they are slow. My onboard compressor will fill two big 37" tyres at the same time at a rate of about 5psi/2minutes which isn't too bad but it's a little bigger than most.

If you break a bead off-road then you can run into trouble. This is when you need a tank that can very quickly blow up the tyre to seat the bead. (Others can post vids of the tyre explosion method using aerosols.)

Michael Groves: You ARE the man! Your response was most interesting. Did you ever live in Vancouver, BC?

 

[michaelgroves]

Michael Groves: You ARE the man! Your response was most interesting. Did you ever live in Vancouver, BC?

Hahaha! yes, maths & physics, if you don't use 'em you lose 'em!

I lived in Vancouver for a couple of years when I was a nipper. My father worked there for MacBlo. Mid/late sixties. Intrigued as to why you ask?

 

[Dolomiti]

Thanks for all the help on this. I will start looking at compressors.

 

[Dolomiti]

1 bar = 1 atmosphere = 14psi

Your tyres are about 75 litres each. So if you want to air up by 2 bar (from, say 0.5 bar to 2.5 bar), you'll need 150 litres of free air per tyre, PLUS the tank will still need to be at 2.5 bar or more when you're finished - the tank needs to be at greater pressure than the tyre.

It's a 10 litre tank. At 10 bar (~140PSI), that's equivalent to 100 litres of free air. But only the last 7.5 bar counts (because you need to end up with 2.5 bar in the tank), so it's actually only 75 litres of usable air per tank. Each tank can do half of one tyre.

(E and OE, of course!)

Awesome, this should be archived!

 

[Stumpalump]

1 bar = 1 atmosphere = 14psi

Your tyres are about 75 litres each. So if you want to air up by 2 bar (from, say 0.5 bar to 2.5 bar), you'll need 150 litres of free air per tyre, PLUS the tank will still need to be at 2.5 bar or more when you're finished - the tank needs to be at greater pressure than the tyre.

It's a 10 litre tank. At 10 bar (~140PSI), that's equivalent to 100 litres of free air. But only the last 7.5 bar counts (because you need to end up with 2.5 bar in the tank), so it's actually only 75 litres of usable air per tank. Each tank can do half of one tyre.

(E and OE, of course!)

I wish I was that smart! The small compressor tanks make filing the first tire fast and the rest are as slow as your compressor. One advantage of a tank is for reseating beads. Somtimes the extra volume is all thats needed. I have a nice Viar 450. It was the lagest portable compressor they made at the time and may still be. It takes a while to air up, 20 minuts to air up my 35's. I can't run air tools and it won't reseat a bead so if I had to recomend an off road air source then CO2 with a small cheap back up electric compressor would be the way to go.

 

[michaelgroves]

The small compressor tanks make filing the first tire fast and the rest are as slow as your compressor. One advantage of a tank is for reseating beads. Somtimes the extra volume is all thats needed. I have a nice Viar 450. It was the lagest portable compressor they made at the time and may still be. It takes a while to air up, 20 minuts to air up my 35's. I can't run air tools and it won't reseat a bead so if I had to recomend an off road air source then CO2 with a small cheap back up electric compressor would be the way to go.

The tanks do make quite a bit of difference if you have a slow compressor, because of course you can air up in stages. You can quickly air up all 4 tyres by half a bar each from the tanks, to get them acceptable for driving. Then drive for the 10 minutes or so while the compressor is refilling the tanks. Repeat until full.

CO2 is a great way to go for airing up. The cylinders hold ~200 bar IIRC, which is 20 times the volume of air as the compressor tank. Enough for a single tank to inflate 10 tyres by 2 bar each. But they need to be professionally filled even when only half used, they are heavy, and you probably need a compressor anyway.

Belt-driven compressor is the way to go! This is the compressor I want to install: www.extremeoutback.com. Over 200 litres of free air per minute, even at 7 bar.

 

[rickc]

Michael's right. Check this out:
http://www.vmac.ca/index.php?underhood

Overkill for most of our applications but very cool! 70cfm! Bring your jackhammer.

 

[michaelgroves]

Michael's right. Check this out:
http://www.vmac.ca/index.php?underhood

Overkill for most of our applications but very cool! 70cfm! Bring your jackhammer.

I like it! The 150CFM version is 3700 litres per minute!!! Theroretically it can pump a BIG tyre (36/12-16, with a volume of 150 litres) from 0 bar to 3 bar in less than 8 seconds! With an octopus, you could inflate all 8 tyres on 2 trucks in about 1 minute. That's gotta be useful!

 

[chuck45]

I like it! The 150CFM version is 3700 litres per minute!!! Theroretically it can pump a BIG tyre (36/12-16, with a volume of 150 litres) from 0 bar to 3 bar in less than 8 seconds! With an octopus, you could inflate all 8 tyres on 2 trucks in about 1 minute. That's gotta be useful!

Yeah but dig into their website and the 70 version weighs 180 pounds and the 140 weighs 220 pounds! I didn't see anything on cost but I'm betting it is in the 2500 to 3500 range.

The compressor in the Warn PowerPlant does a good job and the two Warn stand alone compressors seem to be quite capable. The small one is as fast as the PP and the twin cylinder is twice as fast. With my PP when airing up my 35's from 14 to 29 the bottle boys only beat me by a minute or two total time.