Tire Ballast

[Soundguy]

mute point now SoundGuy, don't have that tractor anymore, but the thought of taking rears off myself is frightening. I attempt a lot myself, but those bad boys had to weigh in over 600 pounds each. without the aid of some lifting device i am pretty sure I could not man handle it. Now draining the fill would lighten it up substantially (presenting another issue) but I expect they would still be a chore to maneuver around.

Drain em first.. then manhandle. for instance.. a 11.2-28 tire on rim with no center isn't a big deal for one of average size to push around... just plop them on their side than go at them with the tire hammer and spoons. or use a bead cheat tool like some have posted that do all the dirty bead breaking work for you.l

I can tell you.. some rears actually come apart and go together easier than some small fronts...

I'm not a big fellow.. 5'6" and 150#.. use leverage, and make the tools do most of the work.

I just removed and repalced loaded 16.9-24 tires on my naa.. there's 509# of ballast in each tire.. center weigh 65# each.. and the rim? not sure... tire was a tiurf. and the rubber alone must have been close to 150#.. I had the bald one off one side and a new one before i knew it. just gotta be mind full of heavy rolling loads.. plan your route, and have safe places to plop them down.. plus a drum large enough to hold ballast if you load / unload them..

soundguy

 

[bpattie]

SoundGuy, Good to know in case I have to in future. I am sure you are right, I guess I just imagined it would be a huge task.

 

[BearKiller]

The devil is in the details. the amount of preventative prep work I do on a rim when i break it down is why I have good results.

multiple baths, removing all rust electrically and chemically, recoating with rust preventative materials and primers, and hard surfacing materials like epoxy enamil paints.. etc.. my guess that is the difference.

soundguy

Bear in mind that we are dealing with skin-flint farmers with banks-full of money, just too stingy to turn loose of it; their children go barefoot, not because daddy is poor, but because daddy is a miser.

Also, we are doing this as a business, actually more as a courtesy, hoping they will then also buy something from us that we can actually show a profit on.

We probably lose fifty dollars, honestly, every time someone unloads a flat rear tractor-tire to be repaired; charge them $25 labor and give them a seventy-dollar tube and they still think we robbed them.

No way can we afford to go through the process of rim restoration you describe and charge the customer one-third of the time investment alone, especially when the implement guy down the road sells most normal sized rims (not "power-spreads") for about $75 apiece; that won't buy much welding around here.


Besides, we are not allowed to repair "repaired" rims, be it on truck, car, bicycle, or tractor for liability and safety reasons.

I am very poor myself; one doesn't grow up in Kentucky, not be a crook, and be anything but poor; so, I don't expect unreasonable expenses from people, I just dislike throwing effort after other people's foolishness.


Are you doing this "electrolysis" treatment with a battery-charger ?

 

[wedge40]

RimGuard has gotten less expensive over the years as more and more people are using it. I doubt it will ever be as cheap as CaCl, but knowing that it wont do any damage to my equipment or land if I get a leak is worth the extra cost to me. I've heard some people are able to get it for less than $3.00/gal now.

RimGuard does stink to high heaven, but I grew up near a town that processed sugar beets and there were huge piles of by-products all around the factory. The beets were processed in the fall/winter so the waste didn't smell to bad. But come the following July or August you could smell them at least 5 miles away. Easy.

Wedge

 

[Soundguy]

Also, we are doing this as a business, actually more as a courtesy, hoping they will then also buy something from us that we can actually show a profit on..

I don't doubt that. I was merely disputing the 'fact' that you claimed that -nothing- could be done to save a rim that had some cacl leaked on it. Sure.. takes a little time.. but they are absolutely salvageable if you get to them fast enough.

Besides, we are not allowed to repair "repaired" rims, be it on truck, car, bicycle, or tractor for liability and safety reasons.

If you can slap a tube in a pitted rim, you can slap a tube in a cleaned, painted, sealed, pitted rim no?

Are you doing this "electrolysis" treatment with a battery-charger ?

yep.. 12v 10a and a big plastic tub... use ph+ addative for a pool ( sodium carbonate ) as the electrolyte mix. anode or positive cable to sacrificial metal placed at even spacings arounf the tank using wire and gator clips.. and the 'work piece' IE.. the rim, gets the cathode, or negative clamp. Anode material is slowly sacrificed.. so I use scrap iron and old large bolts and whatnot as my anodes. after each bath I pull the anodes and run a wire brush over them to cleanthe conduction surface up.

electrolysis is more or less line of site.. so for a big rim, you'd want an anode on the inside open space of a rim laying in a large tub. can't let the anode and cathode touch.. but the closer they are the better conductance.... have to play with electrolyte mix to get it right.

at 10a you get a nice boiling/bubbling action going on. really don't take long to shed paint and rust... In 4 hrs you can go from shipwreck to shiney metal.. and those are 'lost cause' pieces... the average piece needing cleaning can be worked up in 30 minutes to and hour.. removing loose stuff before you tank it helps speed it up too. any deep pitting can have some naval jelly rubbed on afterwards and it usually converts the rust on contact... then wash, dry prime and paint. I do prefer rudst preventative primers and paints ( por15 is a good $$ one ).. but plain old rustoleum rusty metal primer, and epoxy paint overcoat is also fine.

I know some guys that have used truck bed 'tough liner' and brushed that on pitted metal, let fully cure.. then never needed boots.. it was plenty smooth for the tube with that ruberized liner on, after the metal was 100% shiny clean and rust free.

lower amp battery chargers work as well.. but 10a is real good. I have small baths for small parts and use a 6a and even a 1.5a for say.. 5 gallon and 1 gallon buckets.. etc.

the 1.5a job is great for things like cast iron carbs .. etc.. whenr you can just toss them in all day while doing other things..

soundguy

 

[BearKiller]

If you can slap a tube in a pitted rim, you can slap a tube in a cleaned, painted, sealed, pitted rim no?

soundguy

No problem with that, although I have yet in my over thirty years at it to see any farmer around here actually clean, seal, and properly paint anything.

It is the welded and "bondoed" wheels that we refuse to work on.


I used to use your electrolysis process in reverse, "electro-plating" various gun parts and such, like transferring some guy's wedding band onto the hammer of his BlackHawk.


You should do a very descriptive TECH article with plenty of pictures on your process.

By the way, does this site have a TECH write-up section ??

 

[Soundguy]

I'd bet that you'd never notice my welding on my rims. If the stem hole is bad I drill a new one and weld the old one up and grind it smooth.. most of the time.. can;t find it while naked metal.. deffinately can't find it once painted.

have stitched in parts the same way.

just takes a lil care and patience to make an invisible repair.

guess that's the difference in a person that collects and refurbs old ir, and uses them for some farming.. vs a full time farmer..

etc..

my info on the rim repair is nothing new... most collectors / old iron mongers already know this stuff.

soundguy

 

[SilverbackMP]

To the un-initiated, a tire/wheel under a mere fifteen or twenty PSI seems to be fairly safe, with no apparent danger.

In the real world, a welded wheel letting loose with ten PSI will take your head off.

I have seen tubeless truck tires of one truck take the side out of a stainless-steel insulated milk tanker parked thirty feet away, when a slightly flattened rim wasn't noticed before the tire was aired up.

The army requires any tires on equipment heavier than humvees be change utilizing tire cages for this exact reason--especially with 2 piece rims. Don't know if this is OSHA required in the real world or not.

 

[Soundguy]

The army requires any tires on equipment heavier than humvees be change utilizing tire cages for this exact reason--especially with 2 piece rims. Don't know if this is OSHA required in the real world or not.

good thing we aren't talking about anything like that and are talking about tubed tractor tires...

soundguy

 

[jsborn]

my info on the rim repair is nothing new... most collectors / old iron mongers already know this stuff.

soundguy

Since I am not a collector but would still like to try your technique PLEASE take the time to write up more detailed instructions and teach us poor but interested farmers some new tricks.