Calcium in tires, no longer a fan......

[Oldpath05]

The way I figure it, for a 24 gal tire fill, the difference between RimGuard and WW fluid is, 60 lbs. per tire.

I was hoping someone would do the math for me since it's not one of my strong points, I went to the same school as Ma and Pa Kettle did. 60 lbs/tire is quite a difference I think.

 

[Oldpath05]

I'm willing to bet someone overfilled that tire. With anything one puts in a tire, fill point should be 75% of tire volume. You may get a bit of a squirt even in a properly filled tire but it never comes out like gushing as you described if filled correctly.

That's what I was thinking, too much CaCl was put in the tire or the cold weather made the stuff expand. It's pretty bad when in three years that stuff eats away valve cores.

 

[Oldpath05]

That's one advantage of the more liquity stuff...you can handle repairs and such right at home. Beet juice seems proprietary and they seem not to want to sell you a little bit. Here the distributor has a 250 gallon minimum. I don't know if you need a special pump to extract it or replace it but if so, I'm willing to bet it would cost more than the $25 pump I got at HF to change out my calcium. Also, I thought they had special agricultural tubes for calcium with brass stems or was that long ago and a far away aspect? At any rate, to cut some of the caustic reaction of calcium, I heard some people add lime to the mix. Never did it so I cannot be definitive on the subject of lime added.

Is today's CaCl more corrosive than in the old days, I dont remember herring about valve core being eaten away in a couple years back then, or maybe it was written about in a issue of Farm Journal back in 1968 and that's when lime was first used...........

 

[Deere Dude]

If Rimguard is just beet juice (sugar water), has anyone tried to mix up their own strong sugar water solution and test the freezing point? If a gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs and a gallon of rim guard weighs about 10.8 lbs, that would be about 2.5 lbs of sugar dissolved in one gallon of water. A 4 lb bag of sugar is about $2- so that would cost $1.25 per gallon to mix up your own sugar water solution "Fauxguard" (assuming that the freezing point is depressed to at least -20 F).

I don't think adding sugar will lower the freezing point 1 degree. Kind of like throwing a sugar soda in a freezer.

 

[mcfarmall]

I just picked up my pair of tires for the Farmall C after having them mounted on the rims. The old rims were original with the tractor built in 1951 and the Calcium Chloride solution had rotted both rims beyond repair. I paid $350 for a pair of nice used 9 x 36 rims, $35 for sandblasting, $25 rattle can paint, $90 dismount old rims/mount new rims, $90 for 2 new tubes, 88 gallons of TL 90 beet juice ballast @ $1.75 per gallon ($154) and a $45 "pump charge." Total for the whole shebang was $789 and I put the ORIGINAL rear tires back on!

For the record, I am the first documented user of TL 90 tire ballast on TBN. So far so good. I'll dig up my other thread in a few years and give another review.

 

[fried1765]

I was hoping someone would do the math for me since it's not one of my strong points, I went to the same school as Ma and Pa Kettle did. 60 lbs/tire is quite a difference I think.

I went to the U.of M., way back when the only campus was in Orono, so I am not a genius.

 

[sleepybozo]

If Rimguard is just beet juice (sugar water), has anyone tried to mix up their own strong sugar water solution and test the freezing point? If a gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs and a gallon of rim guard weighs about 10.8 lbs, that would be about 2.5 lbs of sugar dissolved in one gallon of water. A 4 lb bag of sugar is about $2- so that would cost $1.25 per gallon to mix up your own sugar water solution "Fauxguard" (assuming that the freezing point is depressed to at least -20 F).

I don't think adding sugar will lower the freezing point 1 degree. Kind of like throwing a sugar soda in a freezer.

Sodas freeze at Just above 30 degrees F., "If I've done the calculation corectly the freezing point for 1:1 is 22.22F, 2:1 is 12.44F" (that's sugar:water, by weight). This information is surprisingly difficult to find via Google. From other web articles it sounded like (by extrapolation) you could get a freezing point close to zero with a 3:1 solution, and below zero with 4:1, but I didn't find out when the solution becomes saturated. So I guess someone needs to make a saturated solution and stick it in a freezer that's below zero and see what happens.

But there are still potential problems with ants, bees, molds and bacteria. Maybe moot if there's never a leak, but if you check your tire pressures and there's suddenly a bunch of bees following your tire gauge around ...

 

[fried1765]

Sodas freeze at Just above 30 degrees F., "If I've done the calculation corectly the freezing point for 1:1 is 22.22F, 2:1 is 12.44F" (that's sugar:water, by weight). This information is surprisingly difficult to find via Google. From other web articles it sounded like (by extrapolation) you could get a freezing point close to zero with a 3:1 solution, and below zero with 4:1, but I didn't find out when the solution becomes saturated. So I guess someone needs to make a saturated solution and stick it in a freezer that's below zero and see what happens.

But there are still potential problems with ants, bees, molds and bacteria. Maybe moot if there's never a leak, but if you check your tire pressures and there's suddenly a bunch of bees following your tire gauge around ...

A while back, I tried diluting -50F RV antifreeze as an experiment.
I would have been happy with a 0F result.
Tried 1/4 RV to 3/4 water, 1/2 RV to 1/2 water, 1 RV to 1 water, 1 RV to 1/2 water.
NOTHING worked!
WWF -50F (or -40F) is the cheapest way to go, except for used auto anti freeze, and that is an animal attracting pure poison.
WWF is definitely not potable (contains methanol), but animals are not attracted to it.

 

[arrow]

Is today's CaCl more corrosive than in the old days, ...........

I don't think so but what can certainly change is the mix ratio. Somebody may have mixed your solution with a lot of the CaCl powder. I had calcium for 28 yrs and never changed a valve stem. What wrecked mine was using my tractor for logging and always knocking off a stem or two. The calcium that settled between the rim and the tube eventually created a dime size hole that I had a local welder tig up for 10 bucks. Dressed up and prepped the rims right good and back in went the calcium. I also welded stem guards on.

 

[arrow]

If Rimguard is just beet juice (sugar water), has anyone tried to mix up their own strong sugar water solution and test the freezing point? If a gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs and a gallon of rim guard weighs about 10.8 lbs, that would be about 2.5 lbs of sugar dissolved in one gallon of water. A 4 lb bag of sugar is about $2- so that would cost $1.25 per gallon to mix up your own sugar water solution "Fauxguard" (assuming that the freezing point is depressed to at least -20 F).

Rimguard is a "byproduct" of the de-sugaring process of the beet. Don't know the process but whatever else they put in there or through chemical or heat reaction makes the stuff good for -30.