Ok so I had a friend from up north tell me awhile back about how some of his friends made there own steal bumpers outta 3 inch tube'n and would weld the ends up and put air fittings on it so they would have it on the trail if they had a flat. Do y'all think it would be a good idea to do it for the front and rear?

 

Do you mean they seal the tube bumpers and make that their air tank? Hmm, I'm not an engineer, but I wouldn't trust it. I believe air tanks are rounded for a reason. Not sure why you'd want to drive around with big, pressurized tanks on the front AND rear of you rig, sounds dangerous. Wonder if someone rear ended that thing if the result would be similar to rear ending a Pinto?

 

I've hear of it... It's kinda jerry rigged from the ones I have seen. It's not really pressurized, its just a little extra air for getting a bit of air into one tire, nothing close to an on board air set up.

 

True but it would be handy on the trail wouldn't it? As long as you filled it before you headed off to the trails

 

I mean if you put 100 psi. In it it would be more than enough for a tire

 

it would fill a tire and hold air but if you plan to do this i have to make a few suggestions

air tanks are rounded for a reason so just using round tube and welding a plate to the end isnt good enough you need to use domed pipe caps like the ones found here

https://www.shopwagner.com/nxc/nxcli.nsf

your looking for the steel

Type C Weld On Domed Caps

tube or pipe would be fine as long as it is heavy enough wall i would suggest atleast a 1/4" wall so dont expect it to be a light weight bumper

also dont simply weld the cap on you need to bevel the cap and pipe or tube this way you get full penetration
also you may grind the weld a bit but i wouldnt grind it totally smooth you want to make sure itll hold

you follow those rules and you should be fine even if you hooked it up to an on board air system and used the bumpers as the holding tanks ive seen people do it with box tubing but i wouldnt trust it

some are going to disagree with me and say its not safe and they have every reason to say that do to the following

A: i wouldnt use it for on road use as there is a chance of it rupturing and then you endanger other people

B: even the air compressor you have at home or portable air tanks you can buy not only have a chance of rupturing but the ones without a drain have an experation date

so while it would work fine and id say it would be fine for TRAIL USE i would also say to use caution and good judgement

 

I thanking about it and wanted to know others opinions on it cause I know to a certain extension it would be un-safe

 

Moved to chat as this isn't a fab thread. More of a discussion.

 

Honestly 100psi is not much. There's really no danger of catastrophic failure or explosion with that low of pressure lol. The biggest problem you're gonna run into is getting everything to seal well. Your welds have to be moderately good, even little holes will cause problems, obviously. Of course, some may say air tanks are rounded for a reason; equal pressure dispersion. Regardless I wouldn't think twice about charging a sealed rectangle tube to 100psi, or maybe even 200. The other problem you'll have is that you will find there is just not enough volume to fill many tires. You may find that a 66" piece of 2x4 tube (rear bumper sized) at 100psi might not even fill one tire.

 

At 100psi if it did get ruptured your looking at a big PPPFFFFFTTTTTT sound for a second or two, nothing more nothing less. Stop trying to scare people out of a good practical idea, i know a couple people that run airtank rocker/sliders including myself. As long as you dont push the limit on the metal i see no problem in doing this.

 

Round is a stronger shape physically than a square and can hold more pressure.

 

I know I can get caps to weld on the ends but my main worry is over filling it. I've heard of people filling them with 300 psi. I'm not worried about the welds leaking cause I'm good at making clean and strong welds

 

I know, like I said, equal pressure dispersion. The round shape allows equal forces to be distributed at every point. This allows for the least amount of force to be concentrated at any given area.

Sounds good then, as long as your welds are good it should hold up fine. As far as the pressure you choose it really depends on the wall thickness of the tube you use.

 

Is there anyway that you could post a picture so it would give me a better perspective?

 

wish i had better pics of this, but here's a square tube bumper that my buddy uses for air.