Back when I was in the truck tire biz, we had a trucking company send a competitor's service truck over to mount some Michelin steer tires on a tractor. We didn't like it, but had the truck in for an alignment. We're watching from the shop as the experienced tech sprayed down the tire with ether and threw a match to it. WHOMP!!! The tire caught fire and once started couldn't be extinguished until it and the aluminum wheel were toast. New Michelin XZA-1 = $400 New Polished Alcoa wheel = $400 Karma = Priceless Moral = Go easy on the ether. It's bad for tires. Talk about a guy running around like HE was on fire. We were laughing our asses off.
I tried the ether on a small tire/wheel for leaf vac..I could get things to ignite but no "boom" to the rim, just flames every where!!
There are different percentages of ether in different brands of starting fluid. Most won't say on the can what the percentage is, but the cheap ones are generally less potent. Spend the extra buck to buy the brand name stuff instead of the Walmart brand or some other bargain. The object is to get as much instant expansion as possible. A tire man I worked with on an earthmover spread always used ether on big hard tires like scrapers and loaders especially when it was cold out. No messing around with inflatable bead rings or any of those other crutches. A squirt inside the tire, not on it, step back a couple feet and toss a match. POOF! Get the air in it quickly because the heated air cools quickly and the tire will often unseat itself. Take a can with you when you run your ATV back in the brush for miles. Sometimes those little squishy tires are hard to get seated if a stick pushes one off the bead.
The Jalopy Journal
