A few weeks ago, while wandering around Princess Auto’s always fascinating surplus section, I found something useful among the random array of products that is that section of the store. This “Tire2Tire” is an air hose with a tire chuck on either end. Ostensibly, this product is used to reinflate a flat tire by using the air from another of your tires. The idea seems to be that a tire has some infinite amount of air and you can do fun things like inflate other tires and beach balls and air mattresses by harnessing this mystical force. I suppose, in a crowded parking lot, you could probably use the car parked next to yours to refill that flat tire with this product, as long as that car’s owner doesn’t see you.
It might not have been a realistic business model, which may be why these things are being sold as surplus. The product literature also suggests you can increase your car’s top speed by using this air hose. How could I pass that up?
I bought it for use as a tire pressure balancer. I fret a little too much about having equal tire pressure across the axle, and this hose should help make that happen. Especially at autocross events, where you might change tire pressures five times over the course of the day, this could potentially save a lot of time. To really save some time I wanted the ability to fill both tires at once. This meant a slight modification to the basic hose.
To that end, I also picked up this two-port manifold and some other fittings. The plugs on the end can be screwed out, with some effort.
The ports on this thing are ¼" NPT-threaded, with the exception of the plug ends. To make this work, I drilled out the plug ends and tapped them to also have ¼" NPT threads.
The two ends were fitted with 3/16" hose barbs, while the two top holes received a cheap gauge I had laying around and a schraeder valve for filling both tires at once. I then cut the Tire2Tire hose and attached it to the manifold with zipties in lieu of hose clamps.
There was another port on the bottom of the manifold that needed to be plugged. I threaded in a ¼" NPT pipe plug and then ground it down so the whole thing will sit flat on the ground.
Job done.
No more filling each side individually, then running back and forth across the car to make sure the pressures are equal.
Cost:
$7 - Tire2Tire hose
$4 - 2-port air manifold
$5 - 2-pack of schraeder valves
$6 - brass fittings and barbs
Incidentals: gauge, other fittings, teflon tape, zipties
==$22
It might not have been a realistic business model, which may be why these things are being sold as surplus. The product literature also suggests you can increase your car’s top speed by using this air hose. How could I pass that up?
I bought it for use as a tire pressure balancer. I fret a little too much about having equal tire pressure across the axle, and this hose should help make that happen. Especially at autocross events, where you might change tire pressures five times over the course of the day, this could potentially save a lot of time. To really save some time I wanted the ability to fill both tires at once. This meant a slight modification to the basic hose.
To that end, I also picked up this two-port manifold and some other fittings. The plugs on the end can be screwed out, with some effort.
The ports on this thing are ¼" NPT-threaded, with the exception of the plug ends. To make this work, I drilled out the plug ends and tapped them to also have ¼" NPT threads.
The two ends were fitted with 3/16" hose barbs, while the two top holes received a cheap gauge I had laying around and a schraeder valve for filling both tires at once. I then cut the Tire2Tire hose and attached it to the manifold with zipties in lieu of hose clamps.
There was another port on the bottom of the manifold that needed to be plugged. I threaded in a ¼" NPT pipe plug and then ground it down so the whole thing will sit flat on the ground.
Job done.
No more filling each side individually, then running back and forth across the car to make sure the pressures are equal.
Cost:
$7 - Tire2Tire hose
$4 - 2-port air manifold
$5 - 2-pack of schraeder valves
$6 - brass fittings and barbs
Incidentals: gauge, other fittings, teflon tape, zipties
==$22
No comments:
Post a Comment