Tire blow-out helping a friend out here.

[tdump]

I am helping a friend with a T and he put brand new tires on it in 2016. Nice looking tires, may have been on the road 15 miles at the most since install and I drove it most of that. He wanted to take the car to his 80th birthday shindig next week so he had me come over and help with some stuff. His tires were low on air and so we did what we could and he was going to get a new air coupling to air up the tires and I was going to go back down there to finish up some stuff. Lo and behold he and his wife and a couple friends were in the garage talking and 1 of the front tires blew out so hard the neighbors came running. He had bought a new gauge and coupling and put 50 pounds of air in each tire.

That should not be enough to blow out a new or 3 year old tire and tube in my opinion anyway. These tires are on a garaged car with no exposure to the elements. I told him first off to go check the other 3 tires with another gauge as the new 1 may be defective, but he has already let some of the air out of them so we won't know what the pressure may have been before.

He says he is not sure if the tire is damaged. I am concerned as I would think for it to blow plumb off the rim the bead would have to be damaged.
I need some input so I can guide this fellow in the right direction.

[Adam]

Some air chuck couplings can not be used with some inflation tools because they cause hugely incorrect pressure readings. Such is the case with most self clamping chucks when installed to Milton brand inflators with the built in gauge.

If it isn't a gauge problem, then odds are there is an issue with the clincher bead on his rim.

[Don D]

Mark,
More details would be helpful in an attempt to offer a suggestion/suggestions about the situation. Many of us would like to know several facts before offering a response.
What is the tire brand, size and any other details?
Is there any visual damage to any of the tires - cracking, bulging, gouges?
What is the rim type - non-demountable vs demountable, metal vs wood?
Was the car stored on jack stands or not?
Was the air pressure reduced before storage?

I hope this will better serve you to find the answers you are looking for.

Dom

[Les Schubert]

Was it a “CLINCHER “ tire?
Is this a classic case of “knife edge clincher rims”?

[tdump]

It is a 30x3 @1/2 on a wood rim non demountable.
Tires,don't know the brand,I am not at the car ,it is about 20 miles from me.
Car not on stands and tires had slowly went down in air over time and needed to be reinflated.
I did not see the rims before tires were installed.
When I looked at them wedsday they have NO cracking,no damage,literally look new ,which basicly they are.

[Ruxstel24]

Tube may have been cracked from sitting flat...
All I would do is inspect the tire/bead really close and the rim, get a new tube and try it if that looks ok.

[Steve Jelf]

The brand is probably irrelevant, as all the clincher tires come from the same factory. But the country of origin may offer an explanation. I believe the current clinchers come from Vietnam. But in the past some clinchers came from Chile, New Zealand, and Australia. NOS tires from those countries are decades old. They look fresh and new when you unwrap them, but in actual use they wear out amazingly fast or go to pieces even faster. Voice of experience here. 2016 is only three years ago, but that doesn't guarantee that the tires are only three years old.

Another possibility is the tube. There was a run of bad Custom Classic tubes that tended to split. I patched one seven times before I realized it was splitting along a seam and tossed it. I would expect a tube like that to go phssssshh, but maybe at full pressure it would go BANG. I intend to stick with the Hartford tubes at least until I'm pretty sure all the bad Custom Classics are out of the supply chain.

[Scott_Conger]

There is some chance that you will see little to nothing regarding the clincher rim.

50 PSI suddenly released within the tire due to instantaneous rupture of the tube can very well blow the tire off of the rim. Happened on my dad's hack and was there to see it.

I suspect like Dave suggested that the tube may have been damaged by going flat or more likely had a fold in it that got pinched when the tire was aired up.

These things happen (and when they do, are impressive). I told my dad (in TN) that if that blowout had happened at my home at the time in FL that half the neighborhood would have hit the deck when they heard it...

[tdump]

Thanks for the info.I passed it all along to him but I think he already figured it out and didn't realize it.He said he could see part of the tube.I think the tube may have been pinched and it gave up. But I will know more tuesday when I either call or go down there to see.He ordered a tube from Smith and Jones so it will be there by then.

[tdump]

Well it turned out to be a simple case of the tube caught in between the clincher rim and the tire.When inflated to the correct pressure,it blew the tube and a small amount of the tube was sticking out from under the tire. The rim is in great shape,no sharp edges, tire in fine shape,so it got a new tube and a FLAP. It did not have a flap and I feel like that is why the tube was able to get caught in the first place.
So this problem is took care of.
Here is the kicker,it took me a while in Walmarts this morning to find the baby butt powder with talc in it. Most all of it had corn starch. So once I got that, I went to the fellows house and we got started. I had watched a You tube video or 2 to remember how to do the tire work as it has been a while. I watched 1 that the fellow put the tire on with a trash bag. Let me tell you,IT DOES WORK.
of course I had everything powdered really good and the tire was only 3 years old with the mold tits still hanging on.
A hard tire,it may not be as easy?

The only after effects, the mans wife that owns the car was sitting about 3 foot away in a lawn chair when the tube blew. People came from 3 houses down thinking something exploded. She is still have serious hearing loss in her right ear and it took about 30 minutes after the tube blew for her to be able to speak clearly.