3BPercherons
Silver Member
I'll have to point that out to the Kubota dealer who recommended filling my Kubota's rear tires with methanol.
Buying Advice Wheel Weights or Calcium
- Thread starter Bacffin
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I'll have to point that out to the Kubota dealer who recommended filling my Kubota's rear tires with methanol.
bp fick
Super Member
I'll have to point that out to the Kubota dealer who recommended filling my Kubota's rear tires with methanol.
Better known, perhaps, as RV winterizing fluid. Good choice, frankly. Cheap, available and reasonably non-toxic and non-corrosive. Slightly lower slush point than WWF is a bonus if living in the far far north.
Tom_H
Veteran Member
Acid + Base = Salt. The Sodium Chloride we use as table salt is not the only kind of salt; there are many chemical compounds that are a salt, and Calcium Chloride is one of them. Like all salts, Calcium Chloride acts as catalyst in the oxidation of ferrous metals. In other words, just like regular salt, this salt makes iron based metals rust a whole lot faster. Those who drive on salted roads know what salt will do to the underside of your car if you don't have a protective lining sprayed on. Even then, you're likely to get rust.
While Sodium Chloride nor Calcium Chloride might be labeled as a toxin, high concentrations are lethal to living things. We gargle with warm salt water so the osmotic pressure ruptures the cell walls of bacteria. If you consume too much salt, you will die. If you spill the stuff on the ground, nothing will grow there until rainfall or irrigation eventually dissolves the stuff into a low enough concentration for things to grow again.
I personally like to mow with as little weight as possible. I run the Ag tires all the time. I bought a bunch of old disc shaped free weights for use as ballast. I have a customized bar holder on top of my PHD for down pressure when augering. I slip weights on each side of the bar and put the locking collars on. My sub-soiler has a short bar welded vertically on which I stack weight discs and put a collar on top. I am currently designing a flat bar which will bolt to the bottom of the ROPS (side to side) with two round bars welded on that point upwards about 18" or so. I will stack 25# discs on those and then have another cap bar that will lock off the tops of the bars and also bolt to the ROPS. It will look a little like a big version of one of those Chinese abacus calculating devices turned on its side and mounted to the ROPS just behind the seat. I know this will elevate the CG, but I will only use this with the sub-soiler on flat ground. (Both the tractor AND the sub-soiler itself need ballast.) In other circumstances, when the 3ph isn't needed for something else, I just use the box blade or backhoe for ballast, depending on how much weight is needed and how much maneuvering I need to do.
A dedicated ballast box is another alternative. There was a recent thread with lots of good pics of ballast boxes. I liked the one where someone had filled his with concrete, but had a bunch of PVC pipe sleeves throughout it (pointed upwards) into which he could insert the handles of shovels, rakes, etc.
While Sodium Chloride nor Calcium Chloride might be labeled as a toxin, high concentrations are lethal to living things. We gargle with warm salt water so the osmotic pressure ruptures the cell walls of bacteria. If you consume too much salt, you will die. If you spill the stuff on the ground, nothing will grow there until rainfall or irrigation eventually dissolves the stuff into a low enough concentration for things to grow again.
I personally like to mow with as little weight as possible. I run the Ag tires all the time. I bought a bunch of old disc shaped free weights for use as ballast. I have a customized bar holder on top of my PHD for down pressure when augering. I slip weights on each side of the bar and put the locking collars on. My sub-soiler has a short bar welded vertically on which I stack weight discs and put a collar on top. I am currently designing a flat bar which will bolt to the bottom of the ROPS (side to side) with two round bars welded on that point upwards about 18" or so. I will stack 25# discs on those and then have another cap bar that will lock off the tops of the bars and also bolt to the ROPS. It will look a little like a big version of one of those Chinese abacus calculating devices turned on its side and mounted to the ROPS just behind the seat. I know this will elevate the CG, but I will only use this with the sub-soiler on flat ground. (Both the tractor AND the sub-soiler itself need ballast.) In other circumstances, when the 3ph isn't needed for something else, I just use the box blade or backhoe for ballast, depending on how much weight is needed and how much maneuvering I need to do.
A dedicated ballast box is another alternative. There was a recent thread with lots of good pics of ballast boxes. I liked the one where someone had filled his with concrete, but had a bunch of PVC pipe sleeves throughout it (pointed upwards) into which he could insert the handles of shovels, rakes, etc.
arrabil
Veteran Member
Rim Guard. The beet juice puts a lot less strain on the axle and adds more mass than wheel weights. And it isn't a poison or toxin.
Cruisin
Member
Actually, I have very extensive experience with calcium chloride, loaded tires, tractors, and construction equipment in general over more years than I care to talk about.
Spend your money as you see fit.
It seems odd that most will swear by Kubota's recommendations for oil and such, yet consider the same engineers idiots when they recommend calcium chloride as a tire filler.
Any guess as to why calcium chloride is common? It works and it's cost effective. It would have been gone years ago if it caused problems. Methanol is certainly not a new discovery.
This is important in this discussion.
"Rust is a general term for a series of iron oxides, usually red oxides, formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the presence of water or air moisture." (Wikipedia)
Most common chemical form is Fe2O3.
Iron corrosion or rusting, will happen in the presence of beet juice, orange juice, methanol-water mix, calcium chloride or Budweiser as long as free oxygen is available. (Note that the above formula illustrates that rusting requires 3 molecules of oxygen for each 2 molecules of iron.) In a closed atmosphere such as a tire, the oxidation reaction is limited by the number of oxygen molecules available. Significant rusting requires large amounts of oxygen by volume. There's relatively little oxygen in a filled tire. Once the oxygen is reacted, the corrosion stops. The same quantity of oxygen is available in the tire no matter which of the above mentioned water based solutions is used. Therefore, the extent of rusting will be the same over the years. In any case, there's just not enough oxygen to react with enough steel to cause a problem.
3BPercherons
Silver Member
To summarize, then....
You and others like Calcium Chloride. I and others like Methanol. And yet others like Rim Guard. We all have our own reasons for our choices, each of which is as valid as any other.
With that in mind, here's a comparison of the most popular ballast choices. As you'll see, they each have pros and cons, so each of us will choose based on what's important to us.
If you don't believe CC is corrosive then do some actual research. It is not rocket science.
bp fick
Super Member
When Oxygen is present, rusting or oxidation occurs. Oxygen is required for oxidation or rusting. All true. Let's get real.
My problem with the idea that "when the oxygen is used up, the oxidation ceases" therefor the logic is, there will be limited damage done. This ignores the fact that oxygen is re-introduced constantly at the valve stem area as it is an imperfect seal. This is why the port hole for the valve stems typically suffer such rusting problems.
Further, this theory of oxygen depletion supposes that no further oxygen will be introduced, over a life time of use, into the tire chamber itself. Actually, tires constantly require inflating, thus there is a constant re-introduction of oxygen each and every time the operator puts his air hose onto that tire. Over a reasonable 30 year period of ownership, hundreds of pounds of compressed air will be re-introduced into the equation. Each and every time the hose from the air compressor is used, further oxygen is provided for additional and ongoing rusting, pitting and corrosive activity to continue.
In the real world, filling tires mounted on a steel rims with anything that has corrosive properties eventually leads to rusting. It's even Biblical!!!
"Where rust and thieves do break in."
My problem with the idea that "when the oxygen is used up, the oxidation ceases" therefor the logic is, there will be limited damage done. This ignores the fact that oxygen is re-introduced constantly at the valve stem area as it is an imperfect seal. This is why the port hole for the valve stems typically suffer such rusting problems.
Further, this theory of oxygen depletion supposes that no further oxygen will be introduced, over a life time of use, into the tire chamber itself. Actually, tires constantly require inflating, thus there is a constant re-introduction of oxygen each and every time the operator puts his air hose onto that tire. Over a reasonable 30 year period of ownership, hundreds of pounds of compressed air will be re-introduced into the equation. Each and every time the hose from the air compressor is used, further oxygen is provided for additional and ongoing rusting, pitting and corrosive activity to continue.
In the real world, filling tires mounted on a steel rims with anything that has corrosive properties eventually leads to rusting. It's even Biblical!!!
"Where rust and thieves do break in."
