Tires Loaded Tires

Eric_Phillips · Jun 27, 2005

When I was looking into my first tractor this spring I was convinced by the various dealers to go with loaded tires. I though they all said they put tubes in the tires before loading them. I was assuming they were talking about a standard tire inner tube. Well This weekend The valve stem on one tire came off. I did not notice it until I went to move the tractor on Saturday and the tire came off the rim releasing all that salt water. There was no tube inside the tire. Shouldn't there be a tube keeping the water away form the steel rim? I am calling the dealer today to have them fix the tire and need to know if I should push this subject with him.

Thanks,
Eric

Charolais · Jun 27, 2005

If the dealer put Calcium Chloride in without a inner tube, then he's stupid or just don't give a rats _ _ _. And yes if Calcium Chloride was used I'd push the issue and insist on new rims on all fours.

We used Calcium Chloride from the late 50's on into the 80's. Even with tubes there was still rust to deal with. Every time we had a flat or bought new tires the rims had to have lots of rust removed or replace the rim. Back then most dealers stocked rims just because of the Calcium Chloride use. And they sold a lot of them too.

dmp437 · Jun 27, 2005

That's hard to believe (not using a tube when loading with CaCl) unless it's an off brand tractor/tractor dealer.
Check out RimGuard for a non-corrosive, friendly to the envirement alternative to calcium chloride.
The repair had better be fast (Monday), free, and served up with no baloney (Ah yeah, i told the new guy to fill those tires, and I told him to use tubes....)
Sounds like someone tried to cut corners.

JerryG · Jun 27, 2005

Eric,
If your tractor is new you should have nothing to worry about. The CC causes a problem when the paint is breached. Have the dealer wash the rims real well and touch up the scratches in the paint. Then put in tubes. The rims will out last you.

Eric_Phillips · Jun 27, 2005

Thanks for the response. I wanted to make sure I was not misunderstanding the dealer when he said they put tubes in before loading the tires. The tractor is about three weeks old but I did notice rust inside the rim. I hosed down the rim that has the tire off. I did ask the service manager to pull both wheels, touch up the rims where they are rusting and put tubes in and reload the tires. Unfortunately they cannot get to it until Friday. I don't make a living with my tractor so I can wait. I will call back on Thursday to confirm what they are going to do. Unfortunately I cannot tell if they cleaned up the rims before mounting the tires. When it is done I will check to see if the valve stem looks like a tube or not. This is a FarmTrac dealer. My wife used to 4H with his daughter so she has known him for a long time and thought he was a pretty straight shooter. I hope we did not make a bad decision.

Eric

Dargo · Jun 27, 2005

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( then he's stupid or just don't give a rats _ _ _.)</font>

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I had to laugh out loud reading that. That's sort of exactly what I was thinking. I'm trying to decide to load my tires or not right now. If I do, I'll probably spend the extra money for the RimGuard.

Charolais · Jun 27, 2005

Hey Dargo. I guess I got excited when I read that post. I sure didn't mean to offend anyone. In my area we use methanol mixed with water for ballast. Don't have to worry with rim rust like the CC. Back when farming was in it's hay day here I remember seeing those 55 gal. drums used to mix CC. all rusted out. They hadn't invented plastic barrels back then. (GOSH I'm getting OLD)

It's the same methanol used in the souped up gocarts that's the big thing now. We have one garage that runs carts on the weekend and fixes tractor tires all week long. He pumps it all from the same drum. It's not as heavy as some ballast but it's pretty cheap and we don't hear rims rusting at night. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif I've seen several tires burst with CC. in them. It'll start the tractor and anything it gets on to rusting. It does work better than Roundup on grass and weeds though. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Eric_Phillips · Jun 28, 2005

My Roundup has been taking about two weeks to work. When my tire let loose, less than a day to kill the weeds. Thank goodness I had not planted the grass yet. Now I need a good rain to wash the salt away.

Eric

MikeCookMN · Jun 29, 2005

I work as an engineer for a large construction equipment manufacturer. We do not tube our tires in which we load ballast. You can refer to the Goodyear and Firestone sites. As long as the tire is properly ballasted, rust will not be a problem. Prior to moving to this construction equipment mfgr 15 years ago, I worked for an ag tractor manufacturer. We had stopped using tubes for tires getting ballast several years before I left. The main reason for the change was cost.
Mike

Joe_in_Madison · Jun 29, 2005

Guys,

I wanted to let you know that I got a 2210 last week, and took the tires to have them loaded with RimGuard. The cost was $3 gallon installed. For a total of $60. And it's pretty good stuff. The tires came off surprisingly easy, I didn't read the specs, but there was probably less than 50ft-lbs on each wheel bolt. I was able to replace them surprisingly easy as well. I'd asked the wife for help, but when I saw her five minutes later I was already done, and it's made a HUGE difference with the loader.

That CaCl is corrosive stuff, we had an older 2020 that took about 100 gal per wheel. And wouldn't ya know it rusted out at the valve stem. We pumped out the one wheel put in a tube and put the CaCl in some drums we had laying around. By year two we went back to get the drums and it had already rusted through one of the drums. These drums were in no way in new condition...but man that was faster than we thought it would go. If you got small tires on new equipment, Rimgaurd seems the way to go to me.