Ballast Right Rear Tire Ballast Fluid Leaked! What Do I Do?

[USNative]

I would tell the dealer come out and take it apart and if the tube is punctured, I pay if not you pay.

Have you determined if you have tubes or tubeless? My tractor (bought used has loaded tires, one has a tube one does not. I think it was originally tubelees, had a flat and repaired with tube.

I do not like the idea of calcium choride in my tubeless tire.

That is a very good idea but I'm afraid he already knows it's not the tube he just flat doesn't want to make it right with me.

I told him flat out that the fluid is gushing out of the stem because of the defective core and he will not listen , he trys to put it back on me saying I must have a puncture somewhere.

He is not going to do anything because to him it's "not a warranty issue".

I think it should be for the fact that the tractor is so new and I haven't had it in any places that could damage either the stem, core or tire PERIOD.

Pretty upset as you can probably tell. Thanks for your cleaver idea though , it was a good one if it weren't for the hard head I am dealing with.

 

[USNative]

Is the leak from the valve core itself? Or is the leak from the stem itself? Could it be leaking from the outside edge of the valve stem? If it is a tube and leaks around the edge, maybe it is a hole in the tube. You just started working the tractor quite a bit and it doesn't take much to crack a valve stem. I just broke two off from hitting small branches and my tractor only has 50 hours on it. Could you take a picture and point out exactly where the thing leaks?

Good luck

Thanks Chuck , no it's not the stem , it was in fact the core being defective and breaking inside the stem. And no, I have never had this tractor anywhere that I could have snagged the stem on anything .

Here's what happened next and the results:

After waiting for hours to get a call back from the hardheaded sevice manager at John Deere my neighbor who is a farmer and knows tractors came by and took a look and found the same thing as I had been trying to tell that Dumb Cluck all along . It was in fact the defective core.

He said that all I need to do is go to the Farm Co-Op about 12 miles away and they would hook me up with a new core . I went right over there and picked up two for no charge which I thought was pretty decent. I came home and put one of them in and refilled with air and problem solved.

I knew it wasn't anything major to begin with but what I am ticked off about is the fact that John Deere's service manager refused to make it right with me. I lost a lot of ballast on that tire and it was due to the defective part I received with the tractor upon the purchase.

I am still gonna go over that hardheads head by contacting John Deere Corporate and I even told him so. If they don't do anything for me so be it but at least I did all I could.

I will not spend any money on ballast so I may drain off the other side to the same level of ballast so I can get the tractor balanced evenly in weight. I may later just go ahead and get the ballast drained out all together and go to a ballast box or maybe Rim Guard. I sure don't like that Calcium Chloride one bit as it is pretty darn corrosive and I don't like the idea of it eating up my rims and stuff.

Anway thanks to all for your comments , if anything new comes up about this I will keep you all informed on this thread.

Thanks. :thumbsup:

 

[Red Horse]

Ny two cents- I agree with another post-I find it hard to believe yu have a new machine and they used calcium chloride-maybe its a regional thing but I think around here(New England) that is yesterday's newspaper.

I also wouldn't lose the benefit of ballasted tires. My 3320 has loaded tires plus I built a weight block that I figure is around 500 pounds. See attached those extra pounds might come in handy some day when you have a good load in your bucket and you aren't exactly level!

 

[JDGreenGrass]

I cringe everytime I see a rusted rim.

Heck, I cringe at the thought of any ballast inside a tire. Nope. I ain't going there.

Ballast Box is THE way to go...or wheel weights....suitcase weights. A couple of options to use as ballast, other than liquid.

I think you are proper in every manner and I think you have the right game plan....drain that sh@t.!!!!:thumbsup:

 

[PILOON]

That tire and tube must be removed!

The calcium can eat out your rim big time, and even worse if it is trapped between a tube and the rim.
You want it off and wash that rim, dry it and probably use tremclad paint to protect the steel.
Rims are $$$.

For my $2.00, I'd load the tire/rim and take it to a major truck tire shop as they are best equiped for that kind of work and I'll bet much less costly to deal with that a tractor dealer.

Good luck!

 

[USNative]

Thanks Red Horse & JDGreenGrass for your thoughts as well.

I am undecided as to what I will do for ballast at this point but I do know this, I am definitley going to get rid of the Calcium Chloride Crap and go either a Hardware Ballast route or Rim Guard or maybe both. The ballasted tires seem to work fine so far for my particular jobs. The tractor has never tried to lift on me with the bucket loaded max even on slopes. I just take it nice and easy with my loads low if bucket is maxed.

I have decided to leave my tractor the way it is for the snow season and then come spring or early summer the Calcium Chloride will be taken out and the inside of the rims cleaned up and repainted if necassary and by then I will have made up my mind what I will do.

That Calcium Chloride, in just that little time of leaking already formed a rust spot around my valve stem hole on the rim. Makes me madder than, well you know what I am thinking.

I am going to go out tomorrow and scrub that area good with soap and a brush and then give that rim and tire a good bath as well. Man, what a PITA!!! Anyway, you live and you learn.

OH, by the way Red Horse, that is a very nice ballast you got there !!! :thumbsup:

Thanks for your responses!

 

[USNative]

That tire and tube must be removed!

The calcium can eat out your rim big time, and even worse if it is trapped between a tube and the rim.
You want it off and wash that rim, dry it and probably use tremclad paint to protect the steel.
Rims are $$$.

For my $2.00, I'd load the tire/rim and take it to a major truck tire shop as they are best equiped for that kind of work and I'll bet much less costly to deal with that a tractor dealer.

Good luck!

PILOON , I think in my case I will be ok , the leak I had was not inside the rim. No leak in the tube itself. Just the valve stem from broken core so it all leaked on the exterior, not inside.

Regardless, at the end of this snow season the Calcium Chloride will be removed and a new solution will be utilized. I was told by a friend that a truck tire shop will do it cheaper so you are right about that. I will do just that when the time comes.

Thanks for your reply as well ! :thumbsup:

 

[Chuck Oppermann]

One final thought from me. I would get rid of the Calcium Chloride for sure. I have used it quit a bit in the past years and maybe it would work with powder painted wheels, but I would get rid of it anyway. I would go tubeless and put metal high flow valve stems in the rear tires and if I was playing around in area where the valve stem would get knocked off, I would have a protector welded on. I have had two valve stems break off from chunks of wood. The tires were loaded with rimGuard in them, and that is a mess. I would put RimGuard in the tire up to the valve stems when they are in the 12:00 position and I would also put a weight box on according to the weight the owners manual subscribes. The reason for all that weight, I was told, is so when you are really working the FEL, the rear tires do a majority of the pushing. This is supposed to save the front axles from torquing to much and breaking. It also helps to keep the tractor from rolling over which can happen very quickly.

 

[JD755]

Chuck brings up a good point. If you are working the FEL hard with heavy loads you need ballast on the 3PH to take some of that weight off the front end. Tire ballast will not do that. Plenty of threads here about front axle damage from too much load without 3PH ballast.

 

[USNative]

Thanks Chuck & JD755,

I will definitley check into getting a 3PH Ballast Box then as well as a different non corrosive liquid ballast or wheel weights. And welding a valve protector sounds like a very good idea as well.

Man, these tires on my tractor must have been 90%-95% full because I had the tractor parked so that the bad tire was at the 12 oclock position and it was still dripping slightly when I got back with the new valve core.

I caught it in a bucket and at least another half gallon there. My farmer neighbor said there was a lot in there and that usually they are only filled about 75% fluid to 25% air. He said that was why it continued leaking even with the stem at the top.

He said that it was a good thing that I had put that bottle jack under the axle or I would have lost even more from the weight of the tractor pushing down on the tire.

After filling that tire back up with the air I tapped on the tire from bottom to top to figure out the ballast level left in that tire and I still have it up to approx 2-3 inches under the top of the rim. The other side is filled to about 5-6 inches from the top of the tire. So i would estimate that I lost in total about 12-13 gallons.

I am still going to drain some off the other side to balance the weight some. I know I can't get it accurate but I can get it real close. I don't like the idea of having that much weight difference from one side to the other for stability reasons and I would think that it would be putting uneven pressure on the rearend and axles especially while working it.

Thanks again for your comments guys , really helpful to me ! :thumbsup: