Tires Dk5310se, new R14 Tire blow-out

[Robin Veerman]

He didn’t. He took wheel, empty tire mounted on rim, into the woods. Installed same, hopefully with help, and drove it home to get it loaded there.

 

[AirOpsMgr]

AirOpsMgr, quite an accomplishment!

That's a big, heavy tire even before filling. I'd love to hear how you managed to make the swap down in your woods! Also hoping you had some help!

I'm also assuming you bought the new tire pre-mounted on a rim! (If not, the story's going to be even better than I think!)

The tire shop mounted the new tire to the rim, unfilled, and I hauled it back into the woods with the UTV as far as I could get it and then rolled it to the tractor the rest of the way.

Used wood blocks along with the jack to level the tractor as much as possible, rolled the tire to the hub and then used breaker bars under the tire to leverage it onto the hub while my wife got a couple nuts started for me.

With the GA heat & humidity just after raining, I'll rank it right up there with a root canal or colonoscopy...

Will refill it with ballast fluid sometime this week.

 

[Threepoint]

How did you change the flat tire in the woods?

Yep, that was one of the questions on my mind.

But to Robin's point, maybe AirOpsMgr put the tractor on a jack stand in the woods, pulled the damaged tire with rim, took it in his UTV to where he could unmount it, then mounted the new tire on the same rim. Then back to the tractor in the woods?

Whatever way he managed it, this was a tough job for one guy. Especially on his birthday. BTW, Happy Belated Birthday, AirOpsMgr!

EDIT: Oops, cross-posted with AirOpsMgr. Mystery solved!

 

[tradosaurus]

I'm wondering if you could slow drive your tractor with a flat tire close to your house so you could work with the flat tire in a convenient spot?
I actually have a truck tire shop just down the road that I believe does service calls.

 

[IndyIan]

I'm wondering if you could slow drive your tractor with a flat tire close to your house so you could work with the flat tire in a convenient spot?
I actually have a truck tire shop just down the road that I believe does service calls.

I don't know how far you'd get before the tire comes off the bead and you start riding on the rim? With 4wd I suppose you could get fancy with some ratchet straps and use a log as a skid or something, or pickup one side of front axle?

 

[deezler]

Or put a boulder or half scoop of dirt in the front loader on one side to counter balance the spent tire corner and take some weight off. In any case the tire is completely spent already, it wouldn't hurt anything to try driving on it.

But dang air ops, that sucks! Good job on the R&R and happy bday. I've been intrigued by the R14s but I guess I will stick with 10-ply R4s instead. I've driven over countless punjis with mine, just hard to avoid doing.

 

[AirOpsMgr]

I'm wondering if you could slow drive your tractor with a flat tire close to your house so you could work with the flat tire in a convenient spot?
I actually have a truck tire shop just down the road that I believe does service calls.

I tried, with 4wd and diff lock I was able to move and the tire was staying on the rim, but with the lateral slope and the fact that the flat was facing the downhill side made the tractor tip even more when moving any direction.

My neighbor came over to see if he could get his JD 5045 in close enough to help pull me out, but we both decided it was too risky with how much the tractor was already leaning.

Had it been more level, yes, I could have driven back to the house if the tire remained on the rim.

 

[Lee1051]

Do like the monster truck guys do and stack in a row of tire plugs the length of the cut. They do that all the time due to the cuts they get crushing cars when they do shows. Not uncommon to see dozens of plugs in cuts like that. Those trucks weigh in at 10,000 lbs

 

[jdmeth]

I once did one better. I would do weekend work for a large land owner, he also owned the local Kubtoa dealership. This was in northeast Florida. He had a five acre wooded lot that had been logged off and was going to replant it with pines. A log skidder had pulled a rolling forest chopper over it. My job was to drive a 50 hp 4 wheel drive Kubota with a Brown tree cutter on it and get all the brush cleared the skidder missed. He told me to make sure and only drive the same direction the skidder had went. In some places I had to go around stumps or holes the loggers had made so that wasn't possible. Well, I managed to run over a punji stick the chopper had left, no bang so I did not immediately stop. That meant I ran over the punji with both front and back tires. The tractor was down a slope, no way to really get to it. The land owner had me just limp the tractor up to a clearing so his crew could replace the tires. Someone else completed the job.

 

[Dunno]

Sorry to hear of your trouble. Same thing happened to a friend with a JCB backhoe.
What could have been done differently to avoid this problem? I was considering buying the R14 tire for my Ford 545D, but the lower ply rating and your experience has made me reconsider. I need a wet/moist field tire and will be working around some cut saplings, but will avoid them if possible. I need a R1 or R14 style tread for rear tires, but now am convinced I need a higher ply rating and bias-ply design to minimize risk of punctures. Road Crew makes a 12-ply R1 tire but I avoid buying anything from the country where it is made. Any other viable tire options that you considered? Would a higher-ply R4 industrial tire with chains work okay? I hate to think of the damage such a set up will do, or even an R1 tread on grassy areas, which is why I have been considering the R14. Thanks.