Fluid filled tires, good or bad?

cjk · Regular Joined: 09 Jul 2001 Posts: 74 Report to Moderator

Im thinking of getting a new tractor and dealer is recommending
fluid in the rears over cast wheel weights. I thought it best to avoid
fluid because of corrosion problems. I have fluid in my current
tractor (1978 JD 2640) and see a little rust starting around the
valve stem.

So if you were to buy a new one, wheel weights or fluid?

keh

Dealer may be looking out for your pocketbook, since weights are expensive. You may want to get the weights now if you can afford it. You can always add fluid later. Use water and antifreeze in tires and you wont have the corrosion problems with calcium cloride. Calcium cloride is popular because it is heavier than water alone. They are other liquids like windshield washer fluid and beet juice, but I have no idea about a cost comparison with them.

KEH

three cs · Regular Joined: 27 Jul 2008 Posts: 69 Report to Moderator

we have them install iner tubes and fill them with fluid you dont have rust problemsthat way

495man

Have had fluid in the loader tractor tires since new, 1992 no problems.

oj

What kind of tires are you planning to fit, i see no problems with bias ply tires and fluid, but if you are planning some fancy metric radial tires then stay away from fluid and go with cast weights, the radial tires need their side walls to flex (quite dramatically) to work properly, and fluid stops this happening. We put metric radials on our 160hp FWA tractor 2 springs ago now, now fluid, but cast weights, and i couldn"t be happier, we run about 6 - 8psi in all 4 tires and they have massive amounts of traction... but my neighbors think the tires have punctures! They always look like they"re going flat.

RodinNS

If you're running bias tires, CaCl works fine. If you're running radials you won't keep tubes in them with CaCl. There's too much flex in the radial tires.
The way I look at it, you're better off with cast weight anyway. It will cost more up front, but if you have a flat, one service call will pretty much eat up any savings you had over cast... and if you fix them yourself you'll find that a tubeless tire is a lot quicker and easier to change/fix than a loaded tube type tire.

I'm in the process of changing all of mine over to tubeless and adding wheel weight...

Rod

Ken Macfarlane

I find unloaded tires ride a whole lot better myself. Windshield washer fluid is getting popular up here. You can buy a 1000L poly tote of it pretty cheap.

Pete76NY

Even if you run tubes, eventually you will have some corrosion fron Calcium...the fluid condenses and transfers thru the tube...not much, but enough, it"s when it mixes with air that you get the corrosion, so a little fluid and alot of ir is worse than the opposite.
We fill ours with windshield washer fluid (we"re) in the NE so we use winter formula, add an 8oz bottle of waterbed conditioner to control any algea. The least expensive way we have found is actually by the gallon from Wally World (if you don"t mind dealing with all those plastic jugs, we use a 55 gal. drum, a sump pump, and a filler fitting you can get at NAPA.
We have had it in one of our tractors for almost 10 years, last summer we had to change one due to a bad sidewall, rim looked like it did the day I finished it.
We run it in any of the tractors that we don"t use regularly for pulling...kinda limits ya to one weight class...and I would reccomend it for any working tractor. Weighs abot 8# per gallon.
Pete

Radials · Guest Report to Moderator

My loader tractor has radials, tubes and cal in the tubes. (16.9x30's) I bought the tractor new in 1998 and the tires/tubes/cal are all origional, don't leak and i've never had one of them go flat or give a moments problem.

RodinNS

You don't do much with it then...

When you load it down with heavy axle loads and make it pull it will shear the valve stems off. If you want to prevent that you can air the tires up... and that basically negates any benefit you get from a radial, so you might as well just buy a bias tire.
Radials at minimum need to be dry... and I'd suggest tubeless if you want to stop the tube problems.

Rod

Radials · Guest Report to Moderator

If you think "i don't do much with it", your wrong... It's our "chore" tractor, and it gets a lot of use, in all kinds of jobs. I REPEAT, it's never had a leak, and has the origional tubes from the factory. I know this, because i bought the tractor new.

jcummins · New User Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 7 Report to Moderator

RodinNS

You can put a lot of hours on a tractor without doing a whole hell of a lot...
You're also in a situation where it's not loaded heavily on the rear when it has a loader on the front.
I have less trouble with tubes in my loader tractor than the others... probably to the point where I don't see it as much of a problem. However, the other two that do the drawbar work and are ballasted to do heavy drawbar work were continously shearing valve stems off the tubes on both Michelin and Firestone tires.
I could probably air them up to 25 psi to avoid that problem but at that point the good of the radial would be defeated... so I'm switching them to tubless as they fail.
I'll say again... if you haven't sheared a stem off a loaded radial, you haven't made it pull.

Rod

Radials · Guest Report to Moderator

Now that's different... First you made the broad statement ----> "If you're running bias tires, CaCl works fine. If you're running radials you won't keep tubes in them with CaCl. There's too much flex in the radial tires."

My answer was to "that" statement. Now your adding in, heavy draft loads, and even though my tractor does pull some heavy loads, it does not do a lot of tillage that requires heavy draft loads.

RodinNS

I'll put it to you this way.
I've got 3 tractors with radials.
A Ford 3930 FWD w/loader that has Michelin's on the rear.
It's sheared one tube.

A NewHolland TS90 with Michelin's on the rear and a very similar BFG radial on the front. It's sheared at least one front and 2 or 3 rears off now. All at the stem.
Neither of these do the 'heavy' work here, but they do at times get loaded down heavy with heavy mounted equipment and they also do some heavy pulling relative to their size.

The other one is a Ford 7710 with Firestone 23 degree's. I've simply lost count of how many tubes I put in those tires now. It was at least one per year for each tire for a while and they're on there 10 years...
Not one of those tires has a hole in them. They've never given a single problem otherwise... just constant trouble with tubes.
You can either air them up and down all the time for whatever load is on them, air them up and leave them up which makes the tire worthless, or basically do nothing with the tractor.

Last summer the TS90 let one rip on a Michelin. It was a saturday afternoon and I had hay to bale. I yanked the tube out, screwed a brass stem in that I had in the toolbox, shoved the tire back on the wheel, stuck the air line on and fired the shot from the bead chetah. I haven't looked at it since.
I did one on the 7710 this spring. I noticed the other leaking tonight. It's getting the same treatment.
I'm done with tubes in radial tires. It's cost me far, far more than a load of cast iron would ever cost.

Rod