Advice: Tire valve extensions /TPMS/ Pressure EqualizersDRW

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

This is a good place to tell my rubber valve stem story which is a good example as to why metal stems are much to be preferred over any sort of rubber.

My life-long good friend who I grew up with has this CJ-5 Jeep with 15-38.5-15 Gateway Gumbo Mudders on 12-inch wide white-spoke "wagon" wheels; real steel wheels with genuine real bias-ply tires from back in the good old days.

These fifty-year-old wheels have the big 5/8" holes for the valve stems; this is important to remember.

The Jeep sits around for weeks at a time and gets driven occasionally to one of the vanishing burger joints with curb service and roller-skate girls that bring a tray out and hook it on your side glass (of course, the rag-top CJ has no side glass)

One sunny afternoon, he decided to run it up to the local coin-operated car-wash and give it a bath; a lot of dust can settle on a vehicle that sits for months at a time.

As he was swabbing around the insides of those huge wide wheels with that big brush that has soapy water squirting through the bristles, all of a sudden, a projectile shot past his ear and there was this loud whooshing sound = he had washed off one of those forty-year-old dry-rotted rubber valve stems.

Like the little boy at the ****(I typed the proper and correct word for an earthen dam in Holland and the powers that be replaced it with these stars --- oh well...), he crammed the end of his thumb over the hole to prevent further escape of the air.

I can't remember just what; but, he managed to knock the nearby garbage can over with his extended boot and roll it close enough to examine the contents and found something somewhat suitable to cram in the hole and slow down the escape of air.

There is a tremendous lot of air inside a properly inflated 15-38.5-15 Gateway Gumbo Mudder.

He made it back to the house; and, when I arrived a few hours later with a handful of new stems, she was listing hard to Larboard but still had a long ways to go before the rim rested on the sidewalls.

 

[KansasIDI]

Whrn I was a little kid, probably 6 or 7, my Dad was doing something or other with tires and had removed the valve core out of one of the tires on his 36’ gooseneck, which he still has. Anyway, being just a little kid I guess made me think I outta stick my thumb over it to stop it or something. Well my hands were all scratched up, and I wasn’t strong enough to keep my thumb over it, so I moved it down to my palm. That tire filled my cuts up with air real fast, and kinda made some bubbles in my hand, and opened up some cuts more and felt weird as hell. Now you couldn’t get me to stick my hand over one of them damn things

 

[Booyah45828]

Whrn I was a little kid, probably 6 or 7, my Dad was doing something or other with tires and had removed the valve core out of one of the tires on his 36’ gooseneck, which he still has. Anyway, being just a little kid I guess made me think I outta stick my thumb over it to stop it or something. Well my hands were all scratched up, and I wasn’t strong enough to keep my thumb over it, so I moved it down to my palm. That tire filled my cuts up with air real fast, and kinda made some bubbles in my hand, and opened up some cuts more and felt weird as hell. Now you couldn’t get me to stick my hand over one of them damn things

There was a guy local to me that died doing that. It's called an air embolism, and everybody should be careful when grabbing a hold of a hose or something else that's pressurized and leaking, as not only air can cause one, so can water, oil, or grease.

 

[Nero]

Also, if those air pockets enter your blood stream, it can kill ya, so be careful

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

be careful when grabbing a hold of a hose or something else that's pressurized and leaking, as not only air can cause one, so can water, oil, or grease.

A local farmer was loading rolled hay with the front-end loader on a 990 David Brown when one of the hydraulic hoses near his arm started spraying fluid.

He only had a couple rolls to go to get loaded; so, he clamped his hand over the leaking line and continued to finish loading the hay.

Later that night, he started getting really sick until his family finally took him to the emergency room.

He never connected his feeling bad with him clamping his hand over a high-pressure hydraulic line and the doctors had no clue as to what was going on with him as he just got sicker and sicker.

I don't know if a blood test would come back positive for hydraulic fluid or not.

He didn't die that night; but, he never was the same again; and, his health just kept deteriorating until he finally did die a couple years later.


On another deal, we ran a huge tire business for many years; and, being in the tire business, you get all sorts of tire news magazines.

I will never forget an article about some guy in Kentucky who was horse-playing around --- you never want anyone around anywhere that is always pranking around as they are IDIOTS and sooner or later will cost you an eye or a vehicle or your life and they will then say "My Bad - My Bad" --- this guy had one of those long air-blasting wands like you would use to blow trash out of a crevice and this other guy had his back to him -- of course wearing those paper-thin blue "ice cream britches" that you get from the uniform rental people; one would be better off wearing their pajamas.

This prankster idiot poked the end of the air wand up between this guys legs and gave him a blast and a couple steps later the guy fell dead --- dead as a doornail.

Anyone have any idea what a doornail is ?

 

[Booyah45828]

This prankster idiot poked the end of the air wand up between this guys legs and gave him a blast and a couple steps later the guy fell dead --- dead as a doornail.

Anyone have any idea what a doornail is ?

There was a high school student had that happen in shop class a few years back in my town. Same exact scenario with an air wand and a prankster. He didn't die, but it did all sorts of internal damage requiring multiple surgeries to correct. I'm not sure if he's even right to this day, as he still might have a colostomy bag.

Pressure is no joke.

 

[KansasIDI]

When I was probably 13 or 14, maybe 15 idk, was helping my dad work on a paddle scraper, an old ‘89 615C as I recall, and it was down on power. Replaced the fuel filters, made no difference, so we took the cowl off over the engine and saw that there was diesel everywhere, but it’s origin was unclear. Well this scraper has an electric primer pump that is activated by a switch in the cab, so Dad said, I’ll go bump the switch, get off to the side and look and see. Nothing, began wondering if it was pre pump. Didn’t seem to be, so I went around to the other side while he cranked on it and fuel shot out the side of the injection pump into my left eye. Case had a crack, and it seems the internal pressure at that part of the pump was about 150-200 psi. My left eye still twitches to this day from that, however I can see out of it, just very slightly less clearly. Was my dominant eye before that, and still is. It works, but has a twitch. Dad even said, watch out while I’m crankin on it, but my young dumb ars didn’t listen

These old mechanical C13s require foot to the floor to start, not hard starting, but they ain’t no Cummins