Compressed Air Storage Tanks

You have to have the right size tank for the compressor, An 18lt tank for an ARB compressor would be to big. find out Liters per minuet the compressor puts out then you can work out what size tank you can use.

Can't see what point exactly your trying to make - is it, that your better off without a tank/receiver, than with one?

I seem to recall something like 20 minutes per tyre without a receiver from 9 psi back up to 45 psi.

Thats pretty slow without the receiver tank (a mandatory 1 hour 20 minute stop to re inflate after beach work)?.

Compared to what? a total of 16 minutes to inflate your 4 tyres using the 18 liter Arlec tank & ARB compressor?

For me it wasn't that hard or expensive to convert a near new 5 liter fire exteinguisher into a air receiver, albeit not as big as your Arlec receiver @ 22 liters.

It's really very simple to do, in that the fire extinguisher comes with it's mounting bracket making the install quick & easey.

Activated the extinguisher into a big garbage plasic bag to catch all the white powder and disposed of it in the trash.

Removed the handle and delivery pipe by unthreading it at the neck.

Blew out the bottle with compressed air until clean.

Activated the handle and blew the delivery pipe and handle with compressed air until clean.

Took a drill and drilled a hole in top wall of extinguisher sufficient to take a tubeless tyre valve stem. Added silicone to the base groove of the tubless tyre valve stem. Used a tyre valve stem tool to seat the new tubeless valve stem from inside the bottle - pulling it out into position so that the wet silicone got a chance to dry in the tubeless valve stem groove and too the steel wall of the extinguisher to create and air tght seal.

Fitted the valve.

Re inserted the handle and pickup tube and tightened using thread tape for an air tight seal.

Test inflated the extinguisher to 85 psi - which using the gauge on top of the extinguisher shows it to be below the normal full operating capacity of the extinguisher when loaded with powder and propellent gas. The full capacity appears to be closer to 120 psi = so 85 psi seems like a safe operating load & co-incides with the automatic cut out switch on the arb compressor anyway.

Plumbed the outlet rubber pipe with compressed air snaplock fittings etc and ran too snaplocks on front and back roo bar and bumper for tyre filling duties.





It's not at all difficult to make a receiver for the arb air compressors system indeed even to add an arlec 18 liter receiver as you describe.

I guess the "advantage" of having one in a practical sense is that:-

e.g. While exiting a beach etc - you can activate the compressor and store up a volume of air ready to inflate tyres when you reach hard ground / hard top road.

Any time saved out of the 80 minutes to re inflate tyres - when it's hot outside and your tired and want to go home is welcome time saved.

You save time for example as the compressor stores air while your coupling and uncoupling from each tyre and from front or rear snaplocks during the tyre filling process.

When you think about it - even a long air hose stores a little more air (but not much) so you can use the ARB compressor without a reciever quite effectively, IF your patient and havent got to be anywhere ina hurry!

Different story if you have say 4 employees in a 4wd spending an hour 20 minutes twice a day re inflating tyres on and off a beach (5 hours 20 mins at what 60 bucks an hour)?

Time is money as they say.

I see that in the USA where they do seem to like to have air horns (train type) in the SUV's - it is not at all uncommon to have 2 or 4 arb type air compressores installed in a box in the back of their trucks, with a large receiver - and use air tools etc to work on their vehicles

Perhaps our use of these arb type compressors - i a little less develloped than the yanks (understandable givenour costs to buy the compressors!).

I would think - if talking multiple arb type compressors - maybe it would be cheaper - more effective to use an old vane type air conditioning compressor run off the engine.

All come back to just how much aor do you want and hhow quickly?

Different users needs will vary.

There are still times I wish I had more!

Cheers

We have a tank under the cruiser and an air compressor that runs off the motor. The tank is from a truck (I think) and is fitted between the chassis and outside, basically under driver. It stores the air for the air bag suspension and also for any air tools we need. He has lots of friends when we go superlite racing at Northam. They all like using the air for pumping up tyres or for rebeading them (Sorry if thats not the right word!! LOL).
I like the fact it takes just the amount of time for him to walk to all four tyres, connect pump and disconnect the air after we have been on the beach. Probably 10 minutes tops. Wouldnt be without it.

Wayne an 18L tank would probably better match a 12 cfm compressor not a tiny unit from ARB.
I run a 9L water fire extinguisher as a tank for a 3 cfm Big Thumper compressor & has no trouble filling it quickly. The main benefits of the tank is I start filling it before stopping to re inflate. The 1st tyre then inflates far quicker with the compressor continuing to charge the tank while fiddling with the valves between tyres. Overall I estimate with the tank I fill 25% quicker. The other reason for fitting one is as a reservoir for using the blower nozzle & for a fast rush of air to reseat beads on tubeless tyres.
The 2nd hand fire extinguisher cost nothing & has the threaded inlet already in it so for the cost of a couple of brackets, hose & a threaded Tee its a great option if one has the room.
I'd probably use the bull bar for a tank next time thereby saving a little weight.
Cheers Craig...............

I don't have a fixed tank - for me it is wasted space.

If I need to reseat a bead (which is not often), I use one of my other tyres pumped up to 80psi as the tank.

To double the speed of my compressor, I bought second compressor and pump up 2 tyres at once. Also means that I have a spare should one fail.

It is worth the effort for all the reasons above. My 3 gal tank under the tray inflates the tyres quick smart.

I also have a "curly" hose extension teed off the air line and it lies neatly up under my seat with a trigger blower connection. This is great for blowing sand etc off my sand grabber floor mats or many other air jet functions which I can do without hooking up my tyre inflation hose. I even use it to blow up the birthday party balloons which all fathers will appreciate.

Cheers

On your model Wayne its not worth it - you need a different model.

In my case the air-tank, my spare tyre, holds more than 60lts and adds no extra complication to the car.

This capacity is sufficent to re-inflate all 4 tyres from 18 to 30 psi without requiring the compressor.

So its quick simple safer and effective.

Hi Wayne

I have run an old piston type air compressor pump on my HJ75 cruiser for years going into an old truck air tank. Quickest way I found to inflate tyres. At first I used a standard air compressor - like you find in most cars now but it would pump all the lubricating oil out and run dry. Also without the air tank this the a/c pump would pop a fitting if you were not quick enough between tyres. With the old truck tank I could fit a blow off valve like what is fitted to standard compressors so when the tank got to 120psi the valve would release. With the rev screw on the HJ75 cruiser I could up the revs to inflate faster.

Unfortunately my new cruiser has no room under the bonnet for an extra a/c compressor so I purchased an electric 100% duty cycle (100l/m under load) compressor and run it with a one way valve into a tank with a 140psi shut off switch. The new tank also has a water drain as it is surprising how much water gets into air tanks. My work 240v air compressor will get 1/2 litre of water in a month easy. This air tank also services the air bag suspension but comes through a water trap so I don't end up filling my air bags with water.

This has been a very fast way to reinflate tyres but I do notice it slows down a bit after 8 tyres or I just get bored of inflating so many tires. My old system would inflate faster but needs more room. The only other system I have seen that works faster was a guy with a scuba tank inflating tyres. He said he can get 30 tyres from one refill. But of course you need room for a scuba tank and that is a potentially dangerous high pressure vessel to take off road.

Just a question to those who use spare tyres as storage tanks - How does the tyre cope with 80+ psi over a time - do the tyres start to separate or damage by over inflating - would an insurance company cover you if you used that tyre as a spare after having over inflated it for a while.

Bob.