“The traction or pulling power which a tire can exert is in proportion to the weight it carries. The greater the load on the tire, the more traction effort it can exert. The way to secure more traction and reduce tire slippage and tread wear is to add weight to the rear axle. Filling tires with liquid is one of the most widely used methods of adding weight to the drive axle of a tractor because of its economy and simplicity. Plain water may be used where freezing never occurs. In colder climates where freezing temperatures occur, calcium chloride flake can be added at the strengths of 3.5lbs per gallon of water. For extremely cold climates, 5lbs of calcium chloride per gallon of water is used. Note that calcium chloride not only provides freezing protection but also increases the weight added by 20% and 28% for 3.5lbs./gal. and 5lbs./gal. respectively. Front and rear tires should only be filled to 75% or “valve level”. Use of fills greater than this are not recommended because the tire becomes more susceptible to impact breaks. For softer ride and better control of power hop, it is recommended that 40% fill (4 o’clock valve position) not be exceeded. Liquid fill has a stiffening effect on tire deflection, especially at lower inflation pressure. Because of this, use of liquid fill may make controlling power hop more difficult. Either tube type or tubeless tires may be filled with calcium chloride solution. Rim corrosion is not a problem with tubeless tires as long as the tire is always kept inflated. This keeps outside air sealed away from the rim and restrains corrosion. A rim used tubeless with calcium chloride solution must be rinsed with tap water immediately after dismounting to prevent extremely rapid corrosion.”
The above is from Titan. At Caterpillar, we ship thousands of vibratory compactors each year with tires loaded with CaCl, tubeless. Like Titan says, as long as the tire is inflated, rim corrosion is not a problem although we do use special valves. All of our competitors also use CaCl in their tubeless tires. After all these are compactors and we need all the weight possible. Salt water is an irritant but not toxic like many anti-freezes, and is much less expensive than Rimguard. For a person not needing a great deal of fluid Rimguard is great but remember that it too has its problems if one has a flat. It is sticky and if it sprays out of the puncture against the tractor it can be quite a gooey mess to clean up.
