Ranger RIC-4716 4-Bar Tire Inflation Cage
The RIC-4716 is a four-bar restraining cage for seating and inflating passenger and light-truck wheel assemblies, and the detail worth understanding before any other is how its bars are made. Each one is 2-3/8" high-yield seamless steel tubing, mandrel bent into a gradual upper arch rather than cut and welded at the corners. Seamless tube has no longitudinal seam to open up under a shock load, and a mandrel bend holds the wall thickness and the round cross-section through the curve instead of flattening it.
That matters because the top of the arch is precisely where a rupturing assembly puts its energy. A cage fabricated from straight sections has a welded joint at that point; this one has continuous tube. Ranger describes the tubing as high-yield with expansion properties, meaning the material is intended to deform and absorb rather than shatter. A cage is a consumable safety device, and the way it is designed to fail is the specification that actually protects the person standing next to it.
Will It Fit?
The cage stands 49.5" tall, 21" wide and 27" deep. It is a free-standing unit rather than a bolt-down fixture, so what you need is floor area and working room in front of it — enough clear space to roll an assembly in, drop it onto the cradle, step back and reach the air line from outside the bars. Four tubular steel base frame supports hold the whole structure up off the slab, which keeps the frame out of standing water and washdown runoff and slows the corrosion that normally starts where steel meets damp concrete.
Check your work against the tire limits rather than the cage limits: maximum tire width is 16" and maximum tire diameter is 47". Measure the largest assembly you actually service, not the largest you usually service — a light-truck all-terrain on an aggressive rim can be considerably wider than the passenger tire beside it on the rack. Shipping weight is 256 lbs, so plan for two people or a pallet jack to place it.
One customer-responsibility item, and it is not a small one: this listing describes the cage, not an inflation system. You supply the air source, the hose, a clip-on chuck and an in-line gauge long enough that you can inflate and read pressure with your body and hands outside the bars. Nothing about a cage is protective if the operator has to reach inside to work the chuck.
The Base, the Cradle and Why the Wheel Should Not Move
Underneath sits a solid welded-steel base carrying a full-width angle-iron wheel cradle. The cradle runs the whole width of the cage rather than sitting as a pair of short stops, so the assembly is captured along its contact line and cannot walk sideways or roll toward the opening as the bead seats. Bead seating is a violent event even when it goes right — the tire jumps onto the rim and the whole assembly shifts. A cradle that holds the wheel in a known position keeps that movement inside the cage.
The four-bar layout is the other half of the same idea. More bars means smaller gaps between them, and the gaps are what a fragment would have to pass through. The arched profile also buys interior volume without widening the footprint, so the cage swallows a taller assembly than its outside dimensions suggest.
Safety and the Regulation Behind It
Inflating a tire that is off the vehicle is a regulated procedure in a commercial shop, not a matter of preference. Ranger's published statement for this cage is that it provides protection exceeding the OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.177 covering the servicing of multi-piece and single-piece rim wheels, and the listing carries a link to a checklist covering the regulations issued under that standard. Read it before the cage goes into service, because 29 CFR 1910.177 is as much about operator training, restraining-device inspection and the inflation procedure itself as it is about owning the hardware.
Exploding tires cause severe injuries and deaths every year. Use the cage for every off-vehicle inflation, follow the manufacturer's warnings and instructions, and retire a cage that has actually taken a rupture instead of putting it back on the floor.
Perfect For
Tire and wheel shops mounting and inflating all day, where the cage is a required fixture rather than an accessory. Fleet and municipal garages servicing light trucks and vans, where the assemblies are heavier and the consequences of a failure are proportionally worse. Farm, ranch and off-road operations handling aggressive tires on steel rims. Serious home and enthusiast garages where someone is already seating beads with a mounting bar and no protection — this is the equipment that makes that job defensible.
What Comes With It, and One Thing to Confirm
The cage arrives as the welded structure: the four-bar upper assembly, the solid welded-steel base with its full-width angle-iron cradle, and the four tubular base supports that hold it clear of the floor.
This listing's feature list also carries several bullets that describe a wheel-balancer clamping kit rather than an inflation cage — hub assemblies up to 9.5" wide, fitment to Ranger balancers with a 36 mm shaft, a centre-hole range of 5/8" to 1.25", and a kit of universal wheel clamp, shaft, centering cones, spacers and spin-on nut. Those specifications belong to a balancer accessory and appear to have been carried into this page from another product's copy. We have left them visible rather than quietly deleting them, and we are not treating them as part of this cage. Confirm the exact carton contents with us before ordering if that distinction matters to your purchase order.
Specifications
| Maximum tire width |
16" |
| Maximum tire diameter |
47" |
| Height |
49.5" |
| Width |
21" |
| Depth |
27" |
| Tubing |
2-3/8" high-yield seamless steel |
| Construction |
Four welded steel bars, solid welded-steel base |
| Shipping weight |
256 lbs |
Certification, Stated Honestly
The claim the manufacturer makes on this cage is a performance statement measured against a workplace-procedure standard: that the cage exceeds the federal requirement covering the servicing of single-piece and multi-piece rim wheels. That is the maker's own declaration. It is not the same document as an independent third-party product listing issued by an outside laboratory, and this listing does not claim one. If your insurer, your corporate safety policy or a state workplace-safety inspector requires an independently listed restraining device, verify that requirement in writing before you buy rather than after.
Shipping and Delivery
This item ships by freight to the lower 48 states. The carrier delivers to the kerb or the dock, not into the building, so you need to be able to take the crate off the truck yourself or arrange to collect it from the carrier's terminal. Delivery to a residential address carries a residential fee, quoted live at checkout with the rest of your freight. When the driver arrives, look the crate over before you sign: note any dent, tear or crushed corner on the bill of lading at the moment of delivery. A damage claim made against a clean signed bill of lading is very difficult to win.
Warranty
Ranger publishes a warranty statement covering its products, and it is the document that governs this cage. This listing does not state a term, so we are not going to quote one at you — ask us and we will send you the current statement before you order. If you do have a problem, contact us first and leave the unit intact: disassembling a product before a claim is assessed is the most common reason a valid claim is refused.
