By Joe Gresh
Everyone has their kink. It may be guns, it may be watches, it may be old two-stroke motorcycles. I have a sweet spot for tire inflators. I must have 10 of the things, some are big and run off 240volt AC, some are so tiny they would fit inside a pack of cigarettes (if you smoked large cigarettes). Each inflator serves a specific need for me called “feeding my ego.”
My latest inflator, the GSPSCN, is a real beast. Sporting dual heads (I wonder if one might be a dummy head?) this little unit moves some air. Connected to a car battery, the GSPSCN can inflate a giant tractor tire from zero to 20 psi in 13 minutes 6 seconds. And that’s not the impressive part. The impressive part is the pump stays cool over that long stretch. All, and I mean all, of my other 12-volt inflators get hot as hell filling up a standard car tire.
Until the GSPSCN I figured that heating up was the nature of small compressors. I haven’t dismantled the pump because I don’t want to break anything but I suspect there are diaphragms instead of pistons used in the two, shallow-finned cylinders.
I’ve used the GSPSCN a bunch because the tractor has a not-so-slow leak in the left rear tire. Overnight it leaks down to zero, only the stiffness of the sidewall keeps the tractor sitting somewhat level.
Of course this wouldn’t be an ExNotes review if we didn’t find something to complain about. The biggest issue is the pressure gauge. The thing is way, way off: like 9-10 psi. It’s useless as delivered. That means you have to have a regular tire gauge to know the tire pressure. It’s a small thing but annoying. Now I need two tools to fill a tire. One day I’ll sit down and mark the dial with a few numbers: 20-30-40-50 psi. Why didn’t the manufacturer do that for me?
The power cord could be 5-6 feet longer. I can reach from the battery to all the tires on a Jeep but Jeeps are short. If you have a car, it would be OK. If you drive one of those big-ass, compensation trucks you’ll come up short yet again. The pump came with a coiled hose extension, but I would rather have a longer cord. Again, the extension is another thing to carry.
The air chuck is a screw type, like all these small compressors I would prefer a 90-degree quick connect style. On a motorcycle with two big disc brakes, it’s hard to get your hand in there to screw on the chuck.
Despite the above listed flaws. the GSP has become the pump I grab first for cars, trucks and tractors. The thing runs so cool I suspect it will last a while, unlike the hot ones that fail filling one tractor tire.
I give the GSP a 4-star rating. If the gauge worked, I’d bump it to 5-stars. Go to Amazon and search the brand name if you’d like one.
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I have a small, 12-volt Slime brand tire inflator that I carry on whichever bike I’m riding. It works well and is like 15 years old now. The main issue (I hate to say problem because it’s more of a design limitation) is that you have to connect it to the motorcycle’s battery. On the RD350 that’s not a big problem but on some bikes, like the ZRX1100, the battery is buried under a bunch of junk I store on the bike. You have to remove the dirty socks, chucks of broken concrete, a dried up Sharpie marker and last year’s Laguna Seca vintage racing schedule. That gains access to the battery door, then you have to slide the battery out to access the terminals.
