Well, I bit the bullet today and filled the rear tires on my 3525 with RimGuard ballast. It's basically the molasses left over from refining sugar beets. Looks like molasses, smells like molasses, feels like molasses. Wasn't brave enough to taste it.
I checked around locally, and I could have had the tires filled with CaCl (calcium chloride) for $210.00, I could have filled them with automotive antifreeze (50/50 mix) for $314.69, or I could have filled them myself with the Rim Guard ballast ($3.00/gallon) which is supposed to be non-corrosive, non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and pet-safe should a tire ever spring a leak. I guess windshield washer fluid was also an option as well.
Like I said, I went with the RimGuard. For exactly the same price as CaCl, I got the non-corrosive, non-toxic benefits, plus, it's actually heavier than CaCl, at 10.8 pounds per gallon vs. 10.3 lbs/gallon for CaCl.
According to the charts, the 12.4-28 tires each took about 35 gallons (75% fill), at 10.8 lbs/gal, so that should have added about 378 pounds to each tire, for a total of 756 pounds total to the rear of the tractor. I bought 70 gallons of the ballast, but the measuring wasn't exactly scientific, so I'm not sure just how many gallons went into each tire. I did have a small amount of ballast left over afterwards... not counting the excess that spilled onto the ground getting down to the 75% fill level.
I drove it around for a bit today after filling the tires with the ballast then inflating them to 15psi, and I could tell that the ride was a bit softer than before. I haven't had a chance yet to put the tractor to work yet with the new ballast, but I'm sure it will be an improvement over the un-ballasted tires.
Time will tell if it was a worthwhile investment... but I can tell just from the short drive I took after filling that the traction has improved quite a a bit... but at less than $0.28 a pound, I probably didn't do too bad.
