Fix Motorcycle tire in BFE

I set up the tire with a small tablespoon of gasoline. I rolled the tire around and bounced it up and down as well in order to atomize the fuel, then I popped the fuse/igniter with a 12V jumper battery.

I used to ride my motorcycle way out into BFE. Since motos don't carry a spare I worried about flat tires out there. I became good at tire repair on the trail. But a source or air while out there is always a concern. There are small CO2 bottle or small electric air pumps or even hand pumps for trail repairs, But all those things could fail. You can run out of CO2, or your electric pump or hand pump quit working.

So a 4th backup plan was in my mind for years. It was explosive tire seating like in this video. The guy in the video uses engine starter fluid (Ether) which I won't have, but I would always have gasoline....almost the same thing

So when I changed tires at home I'd often try to bead my tire with some gasoline. I tried this a half dozen times will only a little success. I'd usually get a mild flash of fire and an unimpressive 'whoomph' sound. Once I actually was successful but that was with a used tire that beaded easily. It didn't give ne any confidence.

So I mulled all this over for years. I finally figured out that the gas I poured in the tire never fully atomized and who knows if the air/fuel ratio was anywhere close to the 14% to 17% that is required for an explosion.

I agonized about how much gas should go in a tire to get the right fuel ratio in there. A gallon plastic jug might be a similar volume of a moto tire. I could put a t-spoon of gas in there and shake it around and then light it somehow. I never got around to doing that, but you can see the thought that I put into this over the years.

So one day, (by this time I'm in my 70s) I'm putting a new tire on my street bike. New tires can sometimes take a 100lbs of pressure to bead the tire. It's no small feat. I thought that I'd put a tablespoon of gas in the tire. Then I rotated the tire a bunch and bounced in on the ground until I was fairly certain that the gas was vaporized.

For an ignition device i stripped about an inch of stranded electric wire in the middle of a 10' piece, then I cut all but one strand of copper wire....stay with me here. I stuff the stripped part of the wire thru the valve stem into the tire. I figured that any battery applied to both ends of the wire would burn that one strand and make a flash spark when it burned in two.

I imagined a cylinder and piston big enough to need a tablespoon of gas could be quite a bunch of expanding gas, but I didn't know if it would seat a tire that might require a 100 PSI....or would it just be another unimpressive 'WHOMPH"?

The time came to spark the battery to the wires. I wasn't too worried, but I did wonder if 4' away from the tire was far enough.

Ok here goes. I sparked the wires to the battery.............................. ............................... SONOFABITCH!!!! it was no lazy whomp. That tire went off jumping a foot off the ground and sounded like a 30/06 went off in my ear. ................ And yes the bead was seated.

It scared the shit out of me. I never wanted to do that again. But it did answer a lot of questions. Mainly if worse comes to worse, you can bead a tire with gasoline.....even if it takes a 100 pounds of pressure.