How to inflate a tire with wd-40

You are on your own if you try this one.

http://www.topspeed.com/cars/car-news/inflate-your-tire-with-wd-40-ar72683.html

I've heard of others using carb cleaner to do the same thing.

And butane. RE: On your own: seconded.

Just to clarify, it doesn't re-inflate the tire. It only re-beads it. You still have to inflate it to the proper tire pressure.

We used to do this all the time off-roading. When off-roading you often have to drop the tire pressure way down to give you more traction. Unfortunately, doing this makes it much more likely that the tire will release itself from the edge of the rim. This is why a lot of off-roaders run beadlock wheels, which allow you to run very low tire pressure without blowing the bead.

It gave new meaning to the phrase, "Blowing up a tire." for me.
Nice trick.

Don't know if the WD-40 would work any more, a few years ago WD-40 changed the propellant from propane to CO2. I know that there is still kerosene in it but i don't know if it would still work the same or not.

I have heard of using spray starting fluid to re-seat tires. Never been dumb enough to try it.

What Paul810 said. We use carb cleaner spray to do it with. I run 12.5" wide tires on 7" wide rims (not recommended by tire or rim manufacturers), this keeps the tire on the bead at lower pressures. I've run mine offroad at 5 psi without losing a bead.

Also, if you have trouble seating a bead you can hook a ratchet strap around the circumference of the tire while airing it up. Just remember to remove it once the bead is set, before you air it up very much.

And be careful when attempting any of these things. Air pressure can do very bad things if you're not careful.

I am curious to know why it works. I guess the "whoosh" creates/is a pressure differential?

I also wanted to add that, sometimes, the tire stays on fire for a bit while it burns off all the fluid and sometimes burns the little rubber stubble things off the tire if it still has them. So be ready with something to put the fire out in case it doesn't go out on its own. If a tire catches on fire it burns very hot and the smoke is highly toxic, making it difficult to put out. Safety first!

I've done it many times with carb cleaner.

Works great. Sometimes you have to ratchet strap the tire to the rim to get the beads closer to the rim or use more fluid


It literally goes POP then sucks the tire to the rim trying to eat more oxygen...

Key reminder... take out your valve stem core or you may be in even more trouble

Nice trick, I could see using it in desperate situation where I was out of other options, but you might want to consider that the oils and greases in some of the products you might use may attack the rubber of the tire. WD-40 might not attack rubber, probably wouldn't do it any good, but I'm suspicious about the ether in the starting fluid.

My worry is that if it does any damage it is being done from the inside out. The tire may look fine right up until it ruptures. Have you ever been driving a car at 70mph and had a tire blow out? I had a tire shed its tread and it was all I could do to keep it under some measure of control, shiny-side-up, and out of a very deep ditch. I hate to think if it had happened twenty miles earlier when there was heavy traffic and we were on a bridge.

I guess if I had an unseated tire on my car, no spare and a forest fire, or other impending doom, bearing down on us, I would use any trick I could conjure up to get me and mine to safety. But I would also be interested in having the tire unmounted, inspected, cleaned up or replaced as needed, remounted and balanced ASAP. I would be far less concerned if the tire was off a farm tractor or wheel barrow.

Getting a tubeless tire to seat can be a trick. I have generally lucked out when the tire pretty much seated itself but I have had occasion to used some contraption to apply pressure around the tread. At various times I have used: a strap clamp, a web type load binding strap and, out in the sticks, a piece of 1/4" rope wound round the circumference several times and tightened with a winding stick. Just a little pressure to get the bead to meet the rim.