How to foam fill tire youtube


Can You Foam Fill Your Tires?

You may have heard of people having their tires filled with foam and wondered – can you foam fill your tires? The answer is yes, you can! And in this blog post, we are going to tell you how.

Can You Use Shoe Polish on Tires?

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Can You Use Shoe Polish on Tires?

Foam filling your tires comes in a few different variations and it is important to know what the differences are before you attempt to foam fill your tires. So if you are interested in learning more about foam filling your tires, keep reading!

Can You Foam Fill Your Tires?

Yes, filling your tires with foam can provide benefits to your vehicle. Foam filling your own tires is a job that we would recommend your local shop assist you with, as it will require you to remove the tire from the rim to insert the foam and then mount the tire again.

While this can be done at home, it is a difficult job without the proper machinery. For this reason, we would recommend bringing your car to a professional to have this done.

Benefits of Foam Filling your tires

Foam filled tires have been gaining in popularity and many tire manufacturers have recently discovered the benefits of selling tires that are filled with foam.

There are currently 2 different methods of foam filling tires.

The first is where a special layer of polyurethane foam is placed inside the tire.

The second method is where the polyurethane foam is injected into the tire.

Both of these have different uses and benefits. The main benefits include reduced road noise and vibrations inside the cabin, as well as ease of use.

For heavy duty machinery, having foam filled tires helps prevent the tire from being susceptible to punctures and reduce down time to repair any tire related issues from being used on a construction site.

Foam filling your tires for road vehicles

If you are considering foam filling your tires for road vehicles, you will be looking at inserting a layer of polyurethane foam into the tire.

This internal layer of foam has also been called “internal acoustic foam“ as its main benefits include a quieter and more comfortable ride. They achieve this by absorbing vibrations that come from the road.

Manufacturer such as Continental and Pirelli have been using this technology for years in their tires and have seen great success. Their foam filled tires have proven especially popular with electric and hybrid models of cars and now come as standard on new Teslas.

This is because electric and hybrid cars offer a quiet ride due to the fact that they have no engine, and therefore the addition of foam filled tires helps to reduce road noise from the tires intruding into the cabin by up to 10dB. This means that foam filled tires can reduce noise by around 15% on average!

As well as reducing noise, foam filled tires also popular as they do not intrude or impact the vehicles driving performance in any way. This is because the foam filling does not change the tires weight, rolling resistance or contact patch and require no upkeep.

The tire remains a pneumatic tire and the foam is an additional layer that does not interfere with the tires workings.

There are very few downsides to foam filling your tires. The first downside is the small premium you will have to pay to have this done. This is usually around $30-40 extra per tire. However, we believe that the benefits of a quieter and more comfortable ride are well worth it!

And finally there have been occasions where the layer of foam manages to detach itself from the inside of the tire and is able to freely move around inside your tire. However this is extremely rare and only happens if the tire pressure is not maintained or if there are any punctures in the tire.

If this happens, it is not dangerous and you will be able to continue driving as normal. The only downside is that your ride quality will be reduced until you are able to have the tire repaired.

This is also an easy repair with minimal costs and a mechanic will use glue to stick the foam back in place. The cost for this and re-mounting the tire should come out to around $30 plus taxes.

Foam filling your tires for construction vehicles

If you are looking at foam filling your tires for construction vehicles, you will be looking at the option of injecting polyurethane foam into the tire. This is done through the use of a machine that will inject the foam into the tire.

The main benefit to using foam in construction vehicles is that it helps to prevent punctures. This is different from road going foam filled tires which still remain pneumatic as the tires used on construction sites are completely filled with foam and no air remains inside them.

It also means that the tire is no longer susceptible to blow outs which can be extremely dangerous. Solid rubber tires are also an alternative option to foam filled tires that fulfil the same purpose.

Therefore the foam filled tires of large construction vehicles helps to support the tire and therefore if there is any sharp objects on the ground, even if it does puncture the tire, the tire will not deflate and the vehicle can continue to be driven.

This is of enormous benefit to those working on construction sites as it helps to avoid any downtime and delays that would otherwise be caused by a puncture.

The only downside to construction vehicle foam filled tires is the cost. The machine that is needed to inject the foam into the tire is not cheap and therefore it can be quite an investment to get started.

Additionally, the tires themselves are more expensive than regular pneumatic construction vehicle tires. However, the benefits of having a tire that cannot be punctured min most cases outweigh the cost for many construction companies. This makes them popular with all vehicles on a construction site including skid steer vehicles.

Can road going vehicles tires be filled with foam?

While adding a layer of foam is perfectly safe to add to road going vehicles tires, filling them completely with foam is not recommended or common practice. This is because replacing all the air inside a tire with foam makes the tire extremely hard and therefore reduces the contact patch.

This can have a negative effect on the vehicles handling as well as making the ride much less comfortable. Additionally, the foam filling makes the tire heavier which can have a negative effect on fuel economy and vehicles braking and stopping distances.

For these reasons, it is not recommended to completely foam fill road going tires. This is only reserved for construction vehicles who drive at very slow speeds around a construction site and off the road.

In conclusion

So now you know the 2 main types of foam filled tires and the differences between them. For average citizens, purchasing tires or fitting your tires with an additional layer of foam can be beneficial as it will help to reduce noise and make for a more comfortable ride without compromising drivability.

For those working on construction sites, completely filling tires with foam might be a worthwhile investment as it will help to avoid punctures and flat tires. However, this does come at a cost both financially for the initial investment as well as for the tires themselves.

We hope you enjoyed this article on can you foam fill your tires and found it informative. If you have any questions then please leave a comment below or get in touch via email or through social media and we will read and respond to every comment, email or question. Thanks for reading!

Can you put expanding foam in your tires?

While you are able to put expanding foam in your tires, we would not recommend driving on them. This is because road tires are designed to be filled with air and filling them with expanding foam will cause your vehicle to handle and react in an unpredictable and unsafe manner.

Can I line my tires with foam myself?

The polyurethane foam found inside tires is specially designed and cut to a very specific size to ensure that it fits properly and is then able to adhere to the inside of your tire.

While it is possible for you to DIY this, you will still need specialist machinery to mount the tire to your wheel. For this reason, we would still advise having a shop carry out the work for you.

Why Companies Pay up to $10,000 for Foam-Filled Tires

Why Companies Pay up to $10,000 for Foam-Filled Tires

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  • Foam-filled tires are made of regular rubber but filled with hardened liquid urethane.
  • They have benefits like being impervious to flats, but can only be used on slow-moving vehicles.
  • Still, companies are willing to pay three times as much as air-filled tires for them.
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Following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: This is a tire technician disassembling what's known as a foam-filled tire. It's a grueling process, but an important one for these special kinds of tires once their tread has worn off. The extra work is apparently worth it, because foam-filled tires come with special benefits and capabilities that companies are willing to pay thousands of dollars more for than air-filled tires. So, how exactly are foam-filled tires made?

Tire Doctor: So, foam-filled tires are basically the exact same thing as air tires. They just have a heavy-duty compound called urethane in them that gets injected through a hose. You let it sit over three to four days, and that's called the curing process.

Narrator: Once the liquid urethane has hardened and manufacturers are sure that the tire is absent of any air, they're ready to go. So, what's the point of having your tires filled with dense foam instead of air? If you're a construction company working on a site covered in loose nails and debris, foam-filled tires that can't go flat are exactly what you need.

Tire Doctor: So, companies will usually do foam-filled tires if they don't want any downtime, because downtime is very expensive for certain customers. Basically what downtime means is if you get a flat because you have an air tire, then you're unable to move that unit until a tire guy like me comes along and fixes it.

Narrator: Besides being impervious to punctures, foam-filled tires provide construction trucks with a softer ride because of the consistent PSI in each tire, and they add extra weight for the more difficult tasks.

Tire Doctor: So, foam-filled tires can also act as a ballast. So, basically, if you are lifting really heavy things, like really heavy rocks, it can stop you from tilting forward. Or if you're rolling one of those big rollers, you put on foam-filled tires, and it adds maybe 1,000 to 2,000 pounds, even more depending on the tire size.

Narrator: But don't get confused. These tires are not made for your full-size pickup or off-road SUV. The speed of passenger vehicles would make the foam melt, and the weight of the tires alone could send you veering off the road and destroy your suspension.

Tire Doctor: So, there's a lot of controversy between if something on the highway can actually have foam-filled tires. A lot of people ask me that kind of thing, like, "Can I put foam-filled tires on my car?" And it's definitely a no. Typically, foam-filled tires are used for low-speed vehicles like construction units, like a skid steer or a loader.

Narrator: Still, it's hard not to envy the idea of tires that can't go flat. That's why the construction companies that use them have to pay so much, between the amount of labor and liquid urethane filling they involve.

Tire Doctor: So, you're usually going to have to pay two to three times more per tire. And you also have to purchase a new tire as soon as you want foam, because if you start to put a used tire on, it doesn't really make the cost worth it. So, say, a smaller tire, it would usually be worth up to $1,000 per tire. And then for the higher-end tires, like the big mining trucks or anything like that that you see in the quarries, it's going to be upwards of, I would say, $5,000 to $10,000 per tire.

Narrator: These extra-expensive construction tires last the same amount of time as regular air-filled ones, if not longer, before their tread wears off. Even so, the time eventually comes when foam-filled tires need to be disassembled. Videos of tire technicians tearing them apart at the end of their life span have become popular online, but this fun-to-watch process isn't the typical way it's done.

Tire Doctor: So, we can bring it in to, say, the people that foam-fill our tires, and they can take it off with a machine, which is way easier, saves a ton of time. But what we do for our customers is we actually do it manually. And it's really labor-intensive, that's for sure. I'm a little too skinny to do that job. My brother has got to do that one. But the reason why we do this is because it saves our customers a couple hundred dollars here and there. Maybe for four tires, it would cost $500 or $600. And instead, we will charge our customers $250. 'Cause it is a family business, so it helps us out a little bit, and it also helps our customers out, so that's why it's good to hire family businesses.

Read next

Inflating the wheels with foam |

Over time, any villager and summer resident gets a lot of various wheeled vehicles that require constant attention and care, including the repair of pneumatic tires and their regular inflation. And it often happens that at the most necessary moment the wheels of turn out to be flat. And as technology ages, this happens more and more often. For example, these troubles began to haunt me constantly, and especially often in winter, in the most severe frost. And that's even worse.

To fill the wheel tire with foam, you first need to drill several holes in the rim with a diameter of 10 mm ...

Finally, I got tired of it, and I solved the problem radically - I “pumped up” the tire not with air, but with polyurethane foam. I first tried filling the tire with foam through the nipple hole. It turned out, but not entirely successful - in some places, due to traffic jams, air sacs remained unfilled with foam. In addition, a significant part of the foam from the hole of the nipple squeezed back.

But the trouble is the beginning! After trying several different options, I eventually found a way to fill the tire with foam without plugs or air pockets. To do this, I drilled several holes 010 mm around the circumference of the wheel disk in such a way that the tube from the foam can freely enter into them. Before starting to fill the tire with foam, it is necessary to prepare several wooden plugs-pegs (according to the number of drilled holes in the disk), which should fit tightly into these holes and prevent the foam from breaking free.

Insert the canister tube into any of the holes drilled in the disk and start the foam supply.

As soon as the first traces of foam that have reached it appear in the adjacent hole, we stop the supply from the can and immediately plug the first hole of the plugs tightly with a peg. After that, you can start feeding foam into the next hole. Then to the next...

In the same way, you can fill the tires of any other wheeled equipment, such as a garden cart, with foam.

Fill the tire with foam as follows. We insert the tube of the can into any of the holes drilled in the disk and start the flow of foam. As soon as the first traces of the foam that has reached it appear in the adjacent hole, we stop the supply from the can and immediately plug the first hole tightly with a peg. After that, you can start feeding foam into the next hole. Then to the next. The last hole, as a rule, no longer needs to be foamed, and as soon as foam appears from it, you just need to plug it with a peg plug. With this sequence of filling, air sacs usually do not remain.

The process of self-vulcanization of the foam inside the tire - in a closed volume without air access - takes a little longer than under normal conditions. The operation of foam-filled wheels can be started no earlier than in a day. And with a large volume of tires, it is better to wait at least two days.

I have been using this technology for filling tires with foam for more than 10 years, and the first foamed tire is still working properly today, although I use it without any discounts both in winter and in summer. For several years, one of the wheels of my old truck was filled with foam. It no longer made sense to repair this wheel in the traditional way, and after filling it with foam, I drove it for quite some time, however, at low speed and for short distances, mainly in the village. The motorcycle that I use for trips to the forest for mushrooms has been running on foam tires for many years.

Initially, I had doubts about the durability of tires filled with foam, but over the years I have become convinced that without air access, the foam does not break down at all and serves reliably, especially where high speeds are not needed. It is also noteworthy that lugs can be easily fixed on foamed wheels, and using the most common screws with nuts or screws for this. This is especially true when operating equipment in winter for driving on snow-covered roads or off-road.

Author; Vladimir Mikhailovich Legostaev0009

  • Author: Pavel