Windshield Washer fluid to fill tires

[greg_g]

Here is a question for you biology / chemistry majors. Why doesn't the beet juice freeze? I'd assume it is the sugar in it that depresses the freezing point. If so, could you accomplish the same thing by adding sugar to water?

Beet "juice" is just a colloquial name, it's actually a by-product of the process that makes sugar from sugar beets. So for all practical purposes, the stuff we're talking about has been de-sugared. It's now "beet-byproduct plus water". Juice. And when you think about it, just about anything you put into water helps lower the freezing point. If I had to guess, I'd say the working component in RimGuard would be ascorbic acid. I wouldn't be surprised if you could make the stuff outa sugar cane too. But it goes to the economics of availability: more sugar beet tonnage is harvested in the continental US than is sugarcane.

RimGuard is just one of several copyrighted names for this by-product. The beet stuff that highway departments put on the roads is marketed under names like "GeoMelt" and "Ice Bite". This stuff doesn't melt ice, it simply lowers the temperature at which wet roads will freeze over. That's why in recent years the highway trucks start treating the roads BEFORE the storm.

//greg//

 

[Labrat]

See if this opens?

 

[bucktaker]

where do you buy bulk WW fluid? what is typical price per gal of WW?

I can get rimguard for 3.00-3.25 per gal installed
would need 120 gals to fill 17.0-24 r4's

 

[greg_g]

I used RV antifreeze in my tires. Environmentally friendly, safe for plants and animals. Doesn't stain. I bought a 45 gallon drum for $285. Which when mixed with water made 90 gallons of fluid that weighed 900 pounds as water is about 10 lbs per gallon. Easy clean up and definitely not corrosive. Tires were 14.9 by 24s.

I made a classic mistake above, by reporting what I paid for RimGuard per gallon. It's not volume that is the determining factor of tire ballast, it's weight. I should have reported its costs to me in dollars per pound. To correct that error, my $237.60 worth of installed RimGuard added ~968 pounds to my John Deere tires (installation was free, no tax). That's about 24.5 cents per pound of beet juice ballast.

Your RV anti-freeze is measurably heavier than WWF, but only marginally heavier than water (specific gravity 1.0); your stuff is about 1.04 versus about 0.82 for WWF. But let's view your $285 investment as the price per pound. 45 gallons of water (376#) plus 45 gallons of anti-freeze (391#) equals 767 pounds. Anti-freeze plus installation hardware cost you $313. Tax not considered, you paid 40.8 cents per pound of RV anti-freeze ballast .

In case you were interested, the environmentally friendly aspect is because the anti-gel component is food grade polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monooleate (or PolySorbic 80). Same stuff that keeps your ice cream soft in the freezer.

//greg//

 

[BRBurns]

where do you buy bulk WW fluid? what is typical price per gal of WW?

I can get rimguard for 3.00-3.25 per gal installed
would need 120 gals to fill 17.0-24 r4's

I just got a price of $5.29/gallon or about 52 cents per lb. WW fluid will be much cheaper for me.

 

[greg_g]

I just got a price of $5.29/gallon or about 52 cents per lb. WW fluid will be much cheaper for me.

Actually, a gallon of RimGuard weighs about 11 pounds, so that's closer to 48 cents. But wow! That's nearly twice what I paid, and I've heard from others that paid as little as $2.27/gal. And Obama keeps telling us there's no inflation, so I can't help but wonder about the soundness of that quote.

//greg//

 

[tankerfarmboy]

Thanks for the reply to my post greg g. I already had the installation hardware from when I had done one of the other tractors that had calcium chloride in its tires. Now I know how much weight it added to the back of my tractor minus spillage. Sorry for the incorrect water/anti-freeze mixture weight LD1. I did not have my science book open at the time. Hahaha!

 

[Tractor Pilot]

Wiper fluid is typically a non-corrosive mixture of alcohol and water. Has to be non-corrosive because of the paint on your vehicle. The -20F freeze feature is a function of the alcohol content. But alcohol evaporates faster than water. And it's a proven fact that air slowly leaks through rubber. Even if your valve stems and rims have good seals, air still works its way through the sidewall. If air can, it stands to reason that evaporating alcohol molecules ca as well. In a windshield reservoir evaporation is not a big deal because you top it up occasionally. Not so inside a tire. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those using wiper fluid are unknowingly driving around with slush inside their tires on a freezing morning. That said, the black rubber absorbs heat from the sun, which helps resist that solidification - especially as the day wears on. Until all the alcohol is gone that is.

Since alcohol has a lower specific gravity than water - and the alcohol content displaces water content - wiper fluid is actually lighter than plain water. Rimguard on the other hand is approximately 1.375 times heavier than water. And unlike other liquid ballast, it's biodegradable. Environmentalists love that, because - if/when you suffer a tire puncture - any subsequent spillage doesn't threaten the ground water supply.

That said, you don't need much RimGuard for a 75% fill on your 4300. Took 88 gallons to do all four R4s on my 3720. $238 for 88 gallons = $2.70/gal (installed). Since then I've talked to folks who've paid as low as $2.27/gal. Seems that location drives the price.

Now there are a lot of folks out there that are satisfied with wiper fluid in their tires, so this is not a condemnation of the practice. My intent is only to apply a little science that helps tell "the rest of the story".

//greg//

I decided to do a science experiment today. I've had the windshield washer fluid in my rear tires for 4 years now. I took a pint-sized sample from the rear tires and put it in my -5F freezer for 5 hours. No freezing. No slushing.

 

[George2615]

Ok, Thanks for the responces guys. I think I'll go with winsheild washer fluid. Found a chart saying that each of my R3's will hold 32 gallons. Holly crap. I think I'll just put 12-15 gallons per tire. I don't want too much weight since I mow with this tractor. I'm just looking for a little more stability.

I also used WW fluid for my rear tires. I used the -20deg. F stuff. 39 gallons per tire. Roughly about 323.7 lbs. per tire at 8.3 lb. per gal.

 

[murphy1244]

I also used WW fluid for my rear tires. I used the -20deg. F stuff. 39 gallons per tire. Roughly about 323.7 lbs. per tire at 8.3 lb. per gal.

Same here, about 50 + gal per tire.