Tire fill- Magnesium

[nivrig]

I was at my local JD dealer today and inquired about filling the tires on my 3320. They referred me to a local tire dealer who uses magnesium to fill the tires. I have never heard of using magnesium for filling the tires before. Personally I'm a little leary about using Magnesium. How about you guys. What's your thoughts on this???

sam

 

[AndyMA]

I've never heard about using it or any other metal before to fill a tire. It must be ground up? Keep us posted.

Andy

 

[AndyMA]

I was thinking about the flamability of magnesium, remembering that early photogratpers used it to create the flash so I looked it up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium

I see many undesirable characteristics and possible a few desirable ones? I don't think I'd put it in my tires.

Andy

 

[daTeacha]

I'll stick my neck out here and say that dealer was talking about a magnesium based salt, probably magnesium chloride. (Elemental magnesium would be expensive and oxidizes very readily. As you've noted, it can burn pretty intensely, but they use in racing wheels for the light weight.) The commonly used tire filling salt water is calcium chloride. I see no particular advantage to using one chloride over another.

If he's talking about magnesium sulfate, that's plain old epsom salt solution and may be slightly less corrosive than the calcium chloride. Why not ask exactly what he means by "magnesium" to find out for us curious types?

If it were me, I'd be looking for someone who sells Rimgard, a beet sugar based solution that is not corrosive and is also biodegradable.

 

[nivrig]

Yup, I prefer Rimguard and had spoken to the manufacturer and there are no distributors in my area. I currently leaning towards WW fluid. I never head of the magnesium thing before and figured I would ask all my tractor buddies out there. I had used CC in the past and wanted to use something else this time.

 

[AndyMA]

I'll stick my neck out here and say that dealer was talking about a magnesium based salt, probably magnesium chloride. .

I got interested in this and did some research. It appears that calcium chloride and magnesium chloride are both used to melt road ice so I suspect that you are right about it being magnesium chloride mixed with water.

Andy