Has anyone repurposed an empty fire extinguisher into a tubeless inflater tank?

[alex_cycles]

Cheers; hadn't thought of the practicalities of needing something whilst out; although I guess worst-case you can always bang an emergency tube in so all's not lost

I think most people use CO2, but in practice, the only time I've had a tubeless tyre that wouldn't seal, I stuck a tube in. CO2 is problematic in that the low temperature can cause the sealant to go off.

 

[figbat]

CO2 is problematic in that the low temperature can cause the sealant to go off.

There is a theory that CO2 somehow causes the sealant to degrade - if I use a CO2 to blast a tyre onto the beads I’ll usually then deflate it and reinflate with air from a pump.

 

[alex_cycles]

There is a theory that CO2 somehow causes the sealant to degrade - if I use a CO2 to blast a tyre onto the beads I’ll usually then deflate it and reinflate with air from a pump.

From what I've read it's likely down to the temperature drop, but in any case your practice seems sound to me.

I use a compressor to seat tubeless tyres in the workshop. The only time I'd want a pressure vessel for seating them would be if I was on a trip and needed to change a tyre. (Then it would be left in the car or accomodation). But that doesn't mean I don't want one, having seen this thread. It's the sort of thing I'd really enjoy making.

 

[Venod]

Cheers all

That looks like a really nice idea (love the versatility they've built in) however I agree that the inlet looks like a bit of a nightmare


Thanks - that looks like a great idea and I have one of these; however it's currently full of woodworm treatment and I'm not sure my tyres would like that


Nice work; although I think I'd prefer to leave the vessel intact and add the valve to the body at the top.


Cheers - I bet 8l takes a while to fill - is it easy enough to control the flow to stop the tyre getting over-inflated once it's on the rim?

So.. I've still had no luck in sourcing a fire extinguisher, however did find this discarded on the side of the road earlier:

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I assume courtesy of some local yoofs in a Vauxhall Corsa with a farty exhaust; as all the cool kids seem to be interested in aerated dairy-based deserts currently

It's ally, 0.95l, and rated to 30bar working pressure / 165bar test pressure - so should be perfectly adequate for my uses
Irritatingly while the fitting initally looks a lot like the ubiquitous 1/8" BSP, turns out it's M11x1.0 - very odd but probably intentionally so.

The thread in the bottle neck is a more conventional M10x1.0 and male-male adaptors are available to convert this to BSP; they're a bit shorter than I'd like since they're going into ally but at these pressures I think there's still a good factor of safety.

For now the plan is to see if I can lash together something using standard fittings, depending on what I can find on the net..

While out for a ride this morning I spotted one of these discarded at the side of the road, so went back in the car and picked it up, did you sort out any fittings valves etc ?

 

[alex_cycles]

Just been to local Aldi and was pleasantly surprised to see this small pressure vessel on sale for £12
15 Bar usage 27 Bar test pressure

I didn't buy one, but some of you might want one. I might nip back later and get one. We'll see.
What would you do with the powder?

 

[Deleted member 26715]

What would you do with the powder?

Have fun

 

[alex_cycles]

Have fun

I may or may not have had some fire extinguisher fun in my university days, but I can neither confirm nor deny it.

 

[alex_cycles]

I just bought one of the Aldi £12 extinguishers. Can't believe you can get a brand new 15 Bar pressure vessel for that price. As I've got a compressor, I don't think it will need any modifications to use it either - just some hoses and clips, and the right "end" for inflating. Hoping I'll be able to flush out all the powder (multiple cycles of fill and empty) without having to unscrew it, but will do that if I absolutely need to.

I don't even really need one, but the urge to experiment got the better of me - particularly having seen a mate's £60 Schwalbe inflator last week. That's half what I paid for my compressor.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Question from a point of ignorance, what is the purpose of these, is it to 'pop' the tyre up onto the bead?

 

[MrGrumpy]

I may try modding another. This time do a more pro job if it . Current one was fairly simple, presta valve and a length of plastic tubing ! Works of a fashion !

 

[MrGrumpy]

Question from a point of ignorance, what is the purpose of these, is it to 'pop' the tyre up onto the bead?

Yes for tubeless

 

[alex_cycles]

Question from a point of ignorance, what is the purpose of these, is it to 'pop' the tyre up onto the bead?

Yes - exactly that.

 

[wafter]

Thanks all - some salient points about tubeless and it seems to be that as usual there are drawbacks and tubeless potentially makes things a bit more polar - making it far less likely to get a flat, but potentially far more of a ballache if you do..

From my records I reckon that maybe 90+ percent of my punctures would have been negated by running tubeless (being the result of either tube pinches or penetration by thin, stabby things) so I'm still pretty invested in the idea; although maybe don't see it as the universal panacea that it might once have appeared.

While out for a ride this morning I spotted one of these discarded at the side of the road, so went back in the car and picked it up, did you sort out any fittings valves etc ?

Good work - as it happens I saw another recently but resisted the urge to collect a second

Re. fittings; yes and no. Male-male adaptors are available to convert the M10 bottle thread to more commong 1/8BSP, however they're not as long as I'd like so will give less thread engagement in the bottle than the original (I don't think this would be a problem at the low pressures we'd be using) .

On top of that fittings are available to make it work (ball valves, four-way branches, pressure gauges... although I couldn't find much that would have allowed me to have done the project to the standard I'd like. If you're less picky than me you could probably get all the nec. fittings for £20...

I just bought one of the Aldi £12 extinguishers. Can't believe you can get a brand new 15 Bar pressure vessel for that price. As I've got a compressor, I don't think it will need any modifications to use it either - just some hoses and clips, and the right "end" for inflating. Hoping I'll be able to flush out all the powder (multiple cycles of fill and empty) without having to unscrew it, but will do that if I absolutely need to.

I don't even really need one, but the urge to experiment got the better of me - particularly having seen a mate's £60 Schwalbe inflator last week. That's half what I paid for my compressor.

Good work - that sounds like a great price

Personally I don't like wasting the powder so an empty one is always going to be preferable, but evidently these aren't as common as they might be..

Let us know how you get on!

 

[Lookrider]

I'm happy with my garden spray adaption....
But I would imagine you could source an empty extinguisher at the local tip or the scrap yard
I say scrap yard as i got a used pressure vessel there in the form of a calor gas bottle
The reason being the 1st rent of a full bottle is expensive as you pay for the bottle hire as well
The gas shop explained that re fills are cheap once you have a bottle to return
So off to the scrap man I went and returned with said empty bottle to return ( the shop then return to calor so he did not care ) so got my 1st fill cheaper
That skip had a lot of if pressure vessels in so perhaps that's where the empty extinguisher may be hiding

 

[johnblack]

Used an airline in the workshop last time I did it, tyre blew of the rim at about 9 bar and dropped me, eardrums weren’t the same for a couple of days.