Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Softening Old Tires?

[Grahame Reinthal (grahame]

When I was a kid, we read somewhere that, at the drag races, they used ammonia to soften the tyres of the dragsters, to try to get extra grip for that initial take-off. Don’t know if that was ever really true but as kids my brother and I had Scalectrix cars and so we used to pinch some of Mum’s ammonia to put on the tyres to make them grip better around the corners. Don’t really know if it made any difference, to be honest.

 

But with real tyres, I don’t know. Hard tyres are simply bad tyres, not just because of lack of grip but also because of potential failure, especially of sidewalls. Hope you are not thinking of softening sidewalls, too!

 

Cheers,

 

Grahame

 

From: Pat Scopelliti [mailto:pscopell [at] stny.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 3 October 2012 1:02 PM
To: Grahame
Cc: 'The FerrariList'
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Softening Old Tires?

 

Someone mentioned he used WD-40 to soften kart tires.  Applied it every day and wound up with a durometer reading of 2.  Yeah TWO.

 

Pat

 

Pat Scopelliti

pscopell [at] stny.rr.com

From: LS [mailto:lashdeep [at] yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 7:52 PM
To: Pat Scopelliti
Cc: The FerrariList
Subject: [Ferrari] Softening Old Tires?

 

Anyone used anything to soften old, hard tires?

Just to save you guys a few calories of typing...they will not be used on any vehicle for anything.

I just want to know if anyone has successfully soften old, hard tires.

Thanks,
LS

 

 

 

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