What happens of you use the gas from the exhaust pipe to inflate a tire?

Xero@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 86 points –
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The exhaust won't work, but included with my grandpa's 1952 8n ford tractor came with an adaptor that you would replace a spark plug on one cylinder, and then pump up a tire using the unburned air fuel mixture into the tire, and running the enigne on the other 3 cylinders.

So the idea is very close to something that was actually done in the real world.

That's a bomb you're inflating at that point.

You are not the first to think of that . But I know the adaptor was somewhat common (the 8n is the most popular tractor model ever, and shared an engine with the model A) and i've never heard of issues. I'm not sure if that is because nobody talked about it though.

You'd need to either already have the tractor on fire, or somehow have an ignition source for this to happen, but you've essentially made a pipe bomb.

It isn't very likely to connect with open flame. Tires are pretty well suited for containing air.

In case your rig is on fire for long enough to melt through the very thick tires, that would be dangerous, yes.

The inside of the Hindenburg wasn't very likely to connect with open flame.

To be fair. No one puts close to a hundred men on a tractor and floats it in the sky (including a dedicated smoking lounge).

All I'm saying there's a bit of a spread to the risk evaluation.

Tell me you don't understand the concept of static electricity without telling me you don't understand the concept of static electricity.

I'm going to use this to fill my motorcycle tires. Fuel vapor bombs on both wheels. Yikes.

Don't have to pay for insurance if any little crash becomes deadly!

They say in a car motorcycle colision the motorcycle always loses. But that's not true; we could both lose.

Just unplug the injectors first. Or turn the fuel shutoff valve if it's carbureted.

If you turn the fuel off on a carbureted engine, it won't run.

Yes, that's the point. You don't need it to run to fill a tire: just crank it over a few times with the starter then replace the spark plug and turn the fuel back on.

If you wanted to run the engine while once cylinder is connected to a tire then you'd very quickly overinflate it. Also you'd be running the engine without a cylinder (no spark plug) which is probably always a bad idea and in many cases straight up impossible.