Should I refill my wheels?

Midniteoyl · Jul 20, 2016

Have a Ford 3400, with loader, that was low on air. When I went to fill them, the valve cores were stuck/bad. Went to replace those, but noticed that no air came out after pulling the cores. Ended up having to poke through with a nail and that's when I found out that one tire has water in it, and the other apparently had water, but no longer did. Pure water. No RV antifreeze or windshield washer fluid as far as I could tell. The one with water no longer in it is pretty rusted up around the stem too. Both valve cores and stems were pretty corroded, with the one pretty bad, but both still hold air good, with the area around the stems being the only obvious spots rusting. I did go ahead and drain as much water as I could from the one that was still filled.

So, I am wondering if I should fill the tires up again as a preventive measure to prevent the rims from rusting out farther. Cant really afford to replace them right now. I would use the antifreeze and water solution instead of the straight water whatever last owner did.. Seems to me to be about the only option to get more life from the rims w/o removing the tires and cleaning them up. Thoughts?

Tire that had water removed already. Notice around stem. It was flaking off.

TripleR · Jul 20, 2016

I would, we use WWF and my installs it himself. Ours with calcium rut, but not with WWF.

oosik · Jul 20, 2016

I would put some kind of fluid - WWF, RV antifreeze, Rimguard - back in the tires. I would not use a salt solution of any kind.

TractorGuy · Jul 20, 2016

I will never liquid fill another tire unless it has a tube in it. I'm not convinced there is any liquid that won't degrade the metal rims not to mention the mess and weight you have to deal with when they need repair.

Gary Fowler · Jul 20, 2016

That corrosion looks like it may have been caused by chemicals not just plain water. The stem has obviously been leaking and should be replaced before adding anything back to the tire, not even air. We ran straight water in all our farm tractors when I was growing up and never had a problem but IIRC all the tires back then had tubes. I put straight water in my LS tire mainly because it is cheap and we don't usually have enough low temps to freeze the tire. If it does freeze, I just don't use it till it thaws which isn't a good option for the Yankees up north who have to do snow removal but it is good for all us southern boys. Pure water on a painted rim is very unlikely to rust, no more so that running the tire thru standing water and mud.

EDIT: my LS tires are tubeless and with water in the tires, it would overload my trailer if I had to haul it which I did once when needing my front driveshaft replaced. I simple took a few minutes and let all the water out of the tires before loading it up on the trailer. The only cost to remove and replace after the repair was a few minutes of my time. I have never had a flat on it but if I needed to repair it, I would remove the water again before attempting to repair it.

Midniteoyl · Jul 20, 2016

oosik said:
I would put some kind of fluid - WWF, RV antifreeze, Rimguard - back in the tires. I would not use a salt solution of any kind.

Agreed..

Midniteoyl · Jul 20, 2016

JD855guy said:
I will never liquid fill another tire unless it has a tube in it. I'm not convinced there is any liquid that won't degrade the metal rims not to mention the mess and weight you have to deal with when they need repair.

The problem is that they already had water, and one was apparently drained before I bought the tractor, which means its already corroding. I was thinking that putting fluid back in would help ****** the corrosion until I can repair/replace the rims and get new tires. In effect, buying me a couple of years.

Midniteoyl · Jul 20, 2016

Gary Fowler said:
That corrosion looks like it may have been caused by chemicals not just plain water. The stem has obviously been leaking and should be replaced before adding anything back to the tire, not even air. We ran straight water in all our farm tractors when I was growing up and never had a problem but IIRC all the tires back then had tubes. I put straight water in my LS tire mainly because it is cheap and we don't usually have enough low temps to freeze the tire. If it does freeze, I just don't use it till it thaws which isn't a good option for the Yankees up north who have to do snow removal but it is good for all us southern boys. Pure water on a painted rim is very unlikely to rust, no more so that running the tire thru standing water and mud.

EDIT: my LS tires are tubeless and with water in the tires, it would overload my trailer if I had to haul it which I did once when needing my front driveshaft replaced. I simple took a few minutes and let all the water out of the tires before loading it up on the trailer. The only cost to remove and replace after the repair was a few minutes of my time. I have never had a flat on it but if I needed to repair it, I would remove the water again before attempting to repair it.

Couple of minutes? This took the better part of the day to get out of just one tire. Of course I had to keep clearing debris from the valve stem too, but every time the air pressure got low enough, I had to put 5-10 pounds back in to start the water flowing again. Its still not all from either tire as I checked today. Since the wheel that was drained, but still wet, has the most corrosion - the stem is actually a little loose in the hole, but still holds air

- I'm thinking I need to refill with something that wont freeze and provide some protection from further corrosion until I can get new rims and tires and start fresh.