I’ve seen many videos of people inflating/attaching tires by spraying some sort of aerosol into the tire and then tossing a match at it. Usually, the tire snaps to the rim and appears to be more or less instantly inflated. But sometimes it goes wrong and the tire/wheel/vehicle/people do a rapid disassemble. What exactly are they trying to do when I see this? Is it the proper way, or just a ‘fun’ trick that sometimes goes horribly wrong?
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A tubeless tire needs to press up against the rim to form a seal. The problem is that until there is pressure in the tire the seal isn’t formed, and until the seal is formed you can’t get pressure in the tire.
In a properly equipped tire shop this problem is solved by loosely seating the tire on the rim then using a compressor to get enough air in the tire fast enough to cause the tire to expand outwards (because air can’t escape faster than the compressor is blowing it in) till it’s against the rim, and then the seal is formed.
In the field this may not be possible. So using a small explosion of burning gas creates enough pressure all at once to get the tire to seal against the rim. The tire can then be inflated all the way using a hand pump or small compressor.
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