Rotted rims - recent comments on calcium in tires

[Mudfly]

Recently there have been a couple of comments on fluid in tires.  Just wanted to add to that conversation with this.  I take some blame in this as I didn’t do the ‘proper maintenance’ on the valve stems by replacing them every couple of years.  And to be honest this tractor sits 99.99% of the time (hoping to change that next year).  
the background is the M that this tire was on came to me as payment for some work that I did.  Tractor runs ok, needs some bearing replaced in the rear end, seals, and most urgently the rear main is leaking.  But it’s going to be a brush hog/woods tractor, so I don’t need pretty, just pretty functional.

This was sitting in the shed, with known badly rusted rims and one day the rim split, tire went flat.  I was in Alaska at the time so I haven’t had time to look at it, and since I’m still 5ish hours away from my farm, other things are usually priority when I get there. 

Anyway, last weekend i jacked it up and took the rim and tire off.  The tire basically fell off.  Cleaned the tire up real well (3 cycles of washing and scrubbing, with a final wipe down and vacuuming inside) and put it on the new rim with a new tube.  Got it back on the tractor even.

This is why I’m now opposed to all fluid in tractors that sit for extended periods.  Working tractor with a loader, yep, fluid works awesome.

This rim was holding air 3 years ago.  This is what calcium will do.

And I know long bar, short bar tires.  Well, they still have good tread and aren’t cracked so they aren’t costing me anything

[Lazy WP]

If it did that much damage in 3 years I call BS! That is more like 30 years of neglect. 

[Mudfly]

1 minute ago, Lazy WP said:

If it did that much damage in 3 years I call BS! That is more like 30 years of neglect. 

I said it was holding air 3 years ago.  I also said I did no maintenance, but I haven't had the tractor that long.  It was well neglected when it came to me.

[Mudfly]

Pic from 2015.  Don’t have anything newer but it was holding air until 2020.  Yes it was rusted already then, but still holding air and usable.

 

[Lazy WP]

4 minutes ago, Mudfly said:

I said it was holding air 3 years ago.  I also said I did no maintenance, but I haven't had the tractor that long.  It was well neglected when it came to me.

Hang cast on it and never check the bolts again. See how long they stay on. Same thing. 
You don’t like calcium, I don’t like cast. Neither one will do much good if not maintained. 

[Mudfly]

9 minutes ago, Lazy WP said:

Hang cast on it and never check the bolts again. See how long they stay on. Same thing. 
You don’t like calcium, I don’t like cast. Neither one will do much good if not maintained. 

I said I don't like fluid in tractors that sit most of the time.  Working tractors, I have beat juice in my primary loader tractor and wouldn't have it any other way. 

My grandpa's Super M and Super C have been on the farm for roughly 60 years each and don't remember touching the bolts on the wheel weights, granted I've only been there for 43 years.  Dad's 560 has been around since 85 or so.  Same thing, never touched one bolt on the wheel weights.

[cedar farm]

That rim is what vehicles and bridge's look like since the highway departments started using cheap calcium chloride instead of salt in the winter.

[stronger800]

I’ll admit I’ve never retightened a wheel weight either, but if one came  loose I would notice it pretty fast (I’ve had clamp bolts come loose and wedge locks come loose with no damage what so ever….because I’m observant), and that’s why my dozen -old-tractors with calcium filled tires  all have there original, really nice looking rims. Basically. 
See  a leak. Fix it.  

[DT361]

Had to call my local on-farm guy to come out for a repair.  He said "I don't charge for CaCl if you want it; I have so much and I can't get rid of it".  If nothing else, I suppose he can de-ice the lot at his shop?

[Mudfly]

2 minutes ago, stronger800 said:

I’ll admit I’ve never retightened a wheel weight either, but if one cane loose I would notice it pretty fast (I’ve had clamp bolts come loose and wedge locks come loose with no damage what so ever….because I’m observant), and that’s why my dozen -old-tractors with calcium filled tires  all have beautiful rims. Basically. 

That's awesome and a credit to your diligence.  I think I mentioned in another thread, leaking fluid can be hard to detect when these things sits for months on end in buildings where you don't go.  1-2 drops of fluid a day, a week, 10 drops a month, hard to detect.  Again, I should have changed valve stems yearly or every 2 years, but being elsewhere it wasn't a priority.  Hopefully I can change that when we are actually living on the farm again.

[stronger800]

In my experience the fluid will show up pretty much immediately around the valve stem when it’s leaking. I see that, I call the tire shop.  24-7.  My guy takes messages,  so I leave one if it’s after hours. 
We have three tractors from the ‘60s, so not quite as old as yours, but they’ve had calcium in them for 60 years. 

[U-C]

In Switzerland we never had fluids in the tires only front weights. Here we started not to add any fluids when the tractors need new tires makes them run much smoother down the roads and they do fine so far in the fields without it.

[Mudfly]

8 minutes ago, stronger800 said:

In my experience the fluid will show up pretty much immediately around the valve stem when it’s leaking. I see that, I call the tire shop.  24-7.  My guy takes messages,  so I leave one if it’s after hours. 
We have three tractors from the ‘60s, so not quite as old as yours, but they’ve had calcium in them for 60 years. 

You are lucky, Tire guy here has a minimum $500 charge to show up….if you can even find one that will take a call.  

 

 

[tractorholic]

Even if the fluid doesn’t leak out it makes the rims sweat on temperature changes 

[stronger800]

I do see the rim sweat once in a while. We have a handful of tire shops still within 20 miles that can usually get to you within a day or so. They tell me they like coming here, because the tires are clean and the rims are not rusty. Had a new guy on the truck show up once and he added $100 onto the bill for a set of four skids steer tires.  I said what’s that for? He said I’m not sure, but they told me we get 100 extra to do skidsteer  tires. I had him call back to the shop and I could hear the manager say through the phone “oh no!  you don’t charge him extra, there’s no cowsheet  on his rims.”

[MTB98]

1 hour ago, tractorholic said:

Even if the fluid doesn’t leak out it makes the rims sweat on temperature changes 

A few hours of condensation on a  rim won’t make it rust through. Even big blocks of iron (like wheel weights) will sweat during periods of quick temperature and humidity changes. 

[mmi]

That rim is good yet,need 15 for this very reason.

Those that like CaCl can buy it from their OWN deep pockets$$

Every one we ever purchased was Unloaded upon arrival,damage was done and the gene is ALWAYS there,mutating .

Got 4 this spring,2 cleanable  2 maybe patch...?  factory correct sq loop,. knock off may fits are $250>600

If they weren't USa IH ,would nt put the 5 hrs in to saving them......too crusty and not getting the camera near CaCl

Cords in tire were gone also.... how do you find/read date    codes?

[Mudfly]

Just one other way to look at this and this is for MY situation, hence my opinion.  You situation may vary, and your opinion is probably different.  
 

Again, talking tractors that sit a lot.  If I forget to tighten a wheel weight it clunks around a couple of times and I tighten it.  But even if it’s loose and it’s sitting in the shed for 9 months straight, not much bad can happen.  The weight will sit there loose, not getting any looser, and won’t ruin the rim.  If the tire goes flat, I don’t loose the cost of the fluid and I can do all the tire work myself.

with the fluid, if the valve core starts leaking a few drops here or there, I likely won’t notice it for several months. (Sometimes it’s 6 months between seeing them)  While I can change valve cores, you always leak some fluid doing that which is easy enough to clean up. But it’s extra maintenance, and I have a hard time finding time to do that as it is for items I don't use regularly.  And since I knew the rims were pretty much shot when I got the tractor, the idea was to use them as long as possible, which I did.  

The whole point of this post was to show what calcium chloride will do to steel.  It’s quite dramatic.  If you can keep the calcium in the tube, you shouldn’t have this issue.

 

 

 

[JDpartsman]

I hate anything to do with Calcium chloride it just eats rims up and with new tubes not being what they used to be and a minimum of 100 dollars just to have a tire guy come out plus labor it is not worth the headache to mess with the stuff. That being said I do all of my own tire work and I have an absolute hate for calcium: because it never fails you get it all over you and pulling the tube out is like trying to pull a calf. I have never ever seen wheel weights come loose on my personal equipment however it does happen. As stated much easier to detect the loose weight than a slight calcium leak. 

[vtfireman85]

Been using molasses/ beat juice, whatever the tire company is handling at the time. It’s cheaper than rims. 

[db1486]

9 hours ago, U-C said:

In Switzerland we never had fluids in the tires only front weights. Here we started not to add any fluids when the tractors need new tires makes them run much smoother down the roads and they do fine so far in the fields without it.

On our case 4wd we have been having tire issues so we pumped the fluid out and been running them dry now. Been fine for tillage and pulling, but running the pt combine or sprayer in the hills, not so fine. Had a few pucker moments combining with it. It's going to get fluid back in when we put new tires on it. 

[New Englander]

A problem is that a tiny leak can go unnoticed until a bit of rust is seen at the valve stem hole. By that time lots of corrosion can already be underway. If it's Rim Guard no harm and it can just leak until it's noticed. I experienced the very thing and when I pulled the tire off the rim had already had a fair bit of corrosion, so much that I sand blasted it and welded up a spot opposite the valve hole that blew through when blasting. Old tractor and the damage could have started long before I owned it but I only investigated when rust began to appear at the valve stem. The tube had the tiniest leak that I only found when blowing it up enough to stretch it out. I believe that was near or at the spot that blew through when blasting and may have been leaking a drop or two for years. Air will leak through rapidly but liquid doesn't.

I have the opposite problem with my backhoe - keeping enough weight on the front wheels. I've got inside and outside front wheel weights and a huge hunk of steel on the grill guard.

[hillman]

6 hours ago, db1486 said:

. Had a few pucker moments 

right there! some tractors power to weight ratio are unsafe without loaded tires, not to mention useless, Nebraska Tests load them down for a reason. Jobs like that M mowing don't require fluid

 I find it humorous when someone says they had the tires pumped out and put a set of weights on instead. It takes a lot of iron to add up to that fluid

go to a plowday with hard dry soil and watch identical tractors one with one without, I have actually experienced this in wet soil. Same tractors ,same plow, Started out with nicer tractor and it wouldn't pull the plow in low areas, Had to go get same model with loaded tires and had no issues at all

[Mike H]

Had a rim failure on the hay mowing tractor last Saturday

tire and rim came off the AC-C wile making a turn cutting

the hub punched a hole in the rim were the friction locks attach

only dropped a foot but it still makes you pucker

acquired a AC-B with new tires and loop rims 

as for ballast it would be nice to purchase beet juce from some were

up here they will only load a tire if its new

[Mudfly]

2 hours ago, hillman said:

Jobs like that M mowing don't require fluid

Yep.  I believe those tires hold around 500# of fluid.  I have 3 more sets of weights if needed.  But I'm going to start with 1 additional set (2 total).

I don't need it for mowing, but might in the woods pulling trees out.  Chains also help with that as we do all our in woods work in frozen conditions.