truck air chamber

[battlemonkey]

my dad has a truck air chamber lying on the side if the road at his mine.
it looks something like this

[/img]<a href="http://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=truck2de6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/170/truck2de6.th.jpg" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us"></a>[img]

i was wondering if it would be usefull with a realy big ball vavle on it like this one
[/img]<a href="http://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=balled9.gif" target="_blank"><img src="http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/96/balled9.th.gif" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us"></a>[img]

thoughts anyone

[ShowNoMercy]

That is not an air chamber, I think its the air filter component for the engine.

[williamfeldmann]

The thing you circled is a fuel tank for the truck not air chamber. Large trucks do have air chambers which power air brakes and other essential systems, though.

It is possible to make a fuel tank airtight. How much pressure it would hold is beyond me though. They are made out of relatively heavy metal, and if you were skilled at welding you could seal the tank quite well.

One think to think about though is that that is a good 30 gallons of capacity (120 liters for you). That is a MASSIVE amount of air to put into that tank and would require a comparable sized air compressor to charge it very often. Not to mention the skill required to attach valves to it and seal it up.

You might think about using it for a combustion gun. If running at normal ambient pressures with 1x mixes you could have one helluva cannon, and it wouldn't require the airthight sealing skill or pressurization.

EDIT: @ shownomercy
The air filter is the vertical chuck of chrome above the fuel tank and in front of the door.

[battlemonkey]

sorry could not find a pic of the real thing. the thing on the road is an air chamber. my dad says it's there because it didn't pass the 300psi test that it has to stand up to but i don't think i need quite that much pressure

[williamfeldmann]

Well there are air chambers that are located on trailers to operate the trailer brakes. They look a lot like fuel tanks but are smaller more like 25 gallon capacity.

This could be what you have. It could have been on a dump truck trailer or other trailer. Trucks themselves don't have big air systems since the truck is not the heavy part. The trailer is. There easily might be an air tank on dump trucks as well but they are not going to be 33 gallon jobs like the fuel tank.

Anyway, what you have cirlced up above is the fuel tank and is around 33 gallons. They are almost always on the left side of the truck looking at it head on. Most over the road semis have 2 tanks, one on each side, since those big diesels only get 6-8 MPG.

[battlemonkey]

yeh i was just trying to give a general idea. it is the brake chamber and it weighs about 60+ kgs

[ShowNoMercy]

Or it could have been to crank the motor over but whatever

[iknowmy3tables]

more importantly how exactlly did it "fail the presure test"

[ShowNoMercy]

Thats easy the air compressor was able to maintain a pressure needed for brakes however as soon as that was turned off the leak was size able enough to fail the test.

[battlemonkey]

before when i said 300 psi i meant to type 3000psi thats why it weighs so much

[spudgunnerwryyyyy]

Well was it a hydro test. You could use it and it would work great but and lower pressures such as co2 (800) or nitrogen (500).

[iknowmy3tables]

wow you could build a crazy hybrid with that kind of presure

[tommy90]

y would u want somethink that big in the first place, you would hav to mount it on the bac of a ute to carry it round.... to much hassle i reken

[iknowmy3tables]

wait I got it make it a burst disk cannon first and when you have the experience add a meter and make it a hybrid, oh or you could make it a oxy-acyt cannon that durablility should make it safe
but first make sure that it didn't suffer any dammage from the test or exposor to the elements