Can I add rimguard myself ?

[radioman]

After reading several posts here, did a search on rimguard, did a search on liquid ballast, I am convinced that I prefer to have rimguard in my BX24 rear tires. My dealer prefer wheel weights, and he only carries calcl if I wanted to go that route. I sent email to rimguard for nearest dealer to me and asked them if I could purchase just the rimguard only so I can put it in myself with gempler's coupler. NO reply from rimgaurd company for a week. My question is this - has anyone ever attempted to fill their own tires with rimguard and what was your experience doing this ? I am a do it yourself kind of guy hence the reason i am asking if I can get rimguard as an individual somewhere local in NY state and not as a dealer. I prefer not to use WWF if I can help it, but may go that route if all else fails .

 

[CHDinCT]

Can't answer your Rimgaurd question, but if you go another direction, I'd take a look at the non-lethal RV antifreeze. Being an antifreeze, it should not rust your rims whereas WWF I think is water with alcohol added in (well that's my guess anyway). Neither is as bad as calcium cholride, but I think the RV antifreeze is better than WWF.

 

[BANDAMAN]

I had my BX 2230 tires loaded with rim guard in MI at my dealer when the tractor was brand new. I told my buddy in IA about it and he wanted it for his Lawn tractor. I went out and bought two new 5 gallon gas cans and filled them from the bulk Rimguard tank at my dealer. He charged me a very nominal fee for the 10 gallons....I hauled it back to Iowa and my buddy used a Shrader valve coupler he got at Wal-Mart or Farm and Fleet or somewhere to load the tires himself. I'll have to ask him exactly how he did it again, since its been a couple years. So its definitely possible to do it your self.

 

[Reg]

I did my own, $10 fill tool and a 25ft CHEEP plastic garden hose.
See other threads with my name and THIS topic.
Rimguard returned my calls and looked up the closest dealer from my zip code, I suggested that they put that dealer finder on their web site, as many businesses do these days.

Basically get 55 gallon drums and go buy it.
Put a jack under the axle on the side you want to fill, no need to raise it, just get most of the weight off so the tire doesn't collapse into the rim when you take the valve core out.
Well, maybe raise it enough to turn the wheel and get the valve at the top, after that you can lower it most of the way down again.
Set up a siphon with the 55 gallon drum in your loader, once everything starts raise the bucket as high as you can to maximize the flow - it will still be SLOW, so find something else to do. DO tie the barrel(s) into the bucket and DO be smooth with the lift and dump controls to keep the bucket floor as level as you can.
I got translucent barrels from a local car wash, which made it easy to glance up once in a while to see the sun shining through and check progress.

I forgot - DO set the parking brake and chock the rear tire that is still on the ground.
If you have a FULL 55 gallon drum raised to max loader height - probably over 600 lbs, you don't want that getting away from you.

 

[radioman]

Do anyone else concur that with 26x12.00-12 turf tires on the
BX24 would need about 10 gallons per tire? I speculate it wold be about 107 lbs per tire with rimguard. The total added wieght would be about 214 lbs. I probably will give rimguard a phone call instead of waiting forever for them to respond to my email. Let me know if my math is wrong - I been wrong before .

bandaman gives me a glimmer of hope that I could do it myself. My next step is finding a local dealer.

 

[JDeerekid]

Do anyone else concur that with 26x12.00-12 turf tires on the
BX24 would need about 10 gallons per tire? I speculate it wold be about 107 lbs per tire with rimguard. The total added wieght would be about 214 lbs. I probably will give rimguard a phone call instead of waiting forever for them to respond to my email. Let me know if my math is wrong - I been wrong before .

bandaman gives me a glimmer of hope that I could do it myself. My next step is finding a local dealer.

For ag tires that size it is 8.3 gals of rim guard which is 88.8lbs per tire. So I would guess you are close enough.

 

[Reg]

Do anyone else concur that with 26x12.00-12 turf tires on the
BX24 would need about 10 gallons per tire? I speculate it wold be about 107 lbs per tire with rimguard. The total added wieght would be about 214 lbs. I probably will give rimguard a phone call instead of waiting forever for them to respond to my email. Let me know if my math is wrong - I been wrong before .

bandaman gives me a glimmer of hope that I could do it myself. My next step is finding a local dealer.

I don't know, but the Firestone web site has a table - www.firestone.com/ag or www.firesoneag.com, not remembering right now.
10 gallons seems like a teenie weenie tire, so it is WORTH checking.


BTW, if you buy more than you can get in with the wheel still on the tractor - and feel like you WANT to get that leftover few quarts in, there is a "trick".

Assuming you can lay the wheel down - and get it up again afterward;
Lay a 4x4 down and lay the wheel on it with the 4x4 just clear of the rim and the valve high.
Be sure you WANT the extra weight more than you want the air cushion, although you will still have some cushion and if it is too harsh letting the surplus out is real easy.

 

[JDeerekid]

For ag tires that size it is 8.3 gals of rim guard which is 88.8lbs per tire. So I would guess you are close enough.

I got this right off of the Rim Guard website. So I would assume it has to be real close. Also that is not for an ag tire it is for and R4 industrial tire.

 

[Reg]

I got this right off of the Rim Guard website. So I would assume it has to be real close. Also that is not for an ag tire it is for and R4 industrial tire.

O/P was asking about turfs.
I know that my 17.5Lx24 R4s hold 50 gallons at 75% full, compared to the standard 12.4x28 R1s that hold 35 gallons.
I don't have the capacity of the 44x18.0x20 R3s for the same tractor, probably because they don't recommend liquid ballast for turfs.
I would guess them to hold slightly less than R4s, they are significantly less circumference and only slightly wider than R4s.

BTW the Firestone site is; Firestone - Choose Language

 

[Reg]

This;
http://www.firestoneag.com/tiredata/info/info_hydro_1.asp
Might be useful, scroll down to the bottom right hand corner to find the page turner.

It assumea a pump and shows a fill adapter with an extension into the tire that can still let air out when the liquid gets above the level of the valve.
I guessed that there are some cases where much more fluid and less air would be desirable and if I ever wanted to get as much fluid as possible OUT of a tire that would be the way to do it, so I tried to find a fill tool like that, but was quoted around $300.
The ~$10 one works well enough.

 

[kthompson]

Regular antifreeze is used in my part of the world. Yes you can put it yourself. My local dealership uses a portable air tank with a fill plug added so they can put pressure on the antifreeze to push it into the tire. They do sell adapter for water hose to the valve stem.

But I either did not follow one persons suggestion on how to add extra or think he is way off. Have never seen any source that said to FILL the tire. All I have seen say to leave it about 25% air. The standard I have known is to turn the valve stem to the highest position and fill it to that level only. Not saying I am 100% positive on that never fill is true for all brands or uses.

 

[radioman]

FYI, I finally got an email response from rimgaurd. He states he tried shipping rimgaurd in smaller container, cost would be over 6 dollars/gallon and his experience is that no one wants to pay that much. He prefer to do this through dealer network. He has asked me for my city and state and he would get back to me with the nearest dealer. Hopefully there would be a dealer nearby. I'll be posting my results throughout this tire fill project here. Phil Globig, President of rimgaurd apolgized for a late email response which I liked. So far everything is going good. Now it looks like it may be up to the local rimgaurd dealer service. (Can't help but have the comments from the guy who waxes his rims posts)

 

[Reg]

Regular antifreeze is used in my part of the world. Yes you can put it yourself. My local dealership uses a portable air tank with a fill plug added so they can put pressure on the antifreeze to push it into the tire. They do sell adapter for water hose to the valve stem.

But I either did not follow one persons suggestion on how to add extra or think he is way off. Have never seen any source that said to FILL the tire. All I have seen say to leave it about 25% air. The standard I have known is to turn the valve stem to the highest position and fill it to that level only. Not saying I am 100% positive on that never fill is true for all brands or uses.

One of my comments was that the Firestone site shows a tool that can fill/empty higher than the valve, which is about 75% and the normal/regular used fill level.
Earlier I had made a comment that you can get a little more in by laying a tire almost horizontal propped up on a 4x4 to get the valve higher.
You would need a way to lift and lower it - the larger tire the bigger this problem could be.
Neither of those comments was any sort of recommendation, although I believe I have seen greater than 75% written about in the past.
It is quite possible that the 75% level is customary as a consequence of the valve position.

 

[Reg]

FYI, I finally got an email response from rimgaurd. He states he tried shipping rimgaurd in smaller container, cost would be over 6 dollars/gallon and his experience is that no one wants to pay that much. He prefer to do this through dealer network. He has asked me for my city and state and he would get back to me with the nearest dealer. Hopefully there would be a dealer nearby. I'll be posting my results throughout this tire fill project here. Phil Globig, President of rimgaurd apolgized for a late email response which I liked. So far everything is going good. Now it looks like it may be up to the local rimgaurd dealer service. (Can't help but have the comments from the guy who waxes his rims posts)

I think there was a dealer section on their web site at one point.
IIRC it showed about a 2,500 gallon storage tank that was required and I think the minimum re-order quantity was 1,000 gallons - something like that.
This stuff comes by tanker truck and at over 10 pounds a gallon is heavy to haul around, so its an economy of hauling issue.
I can't see them wanting to get into the mail order biz with 5 gallon pails (-:
I got mine at a Kubota dealership and at the time I got the impression that they may have been getting some help from Kubota to get in, perhaps low interest loans for the equipment - pure speculation.

Here;
Rim Guard - Liquid Tire Ballast Dealer Information
EDIT:
Here's an interesting little note that I hadn't seen before;
"For rear dual tire applications, fill all rear tires equally and to the 40% fill level (4:00 valve stem location).
Not that the O/P has duals
:END EDIT

 

[radioman]

There is a rimguard dealer in waterloo, about hour drive from here. Going to give them a call.

 

[JDeerekid]

There is a rimguard dealer in waterloo, about hour drive from here. Going to give them a call.

Could you let us know how much rimguard the dealer says to put in the tires? I am just curious how close I was.

 

[radioman]

Called the local dealer and got a quote of 82 dollars just for the rimgaurd. Not too bad. I asked about having them do the work- was quoted $190. I told him i prefer to get rimgaurd only. After dabbling on the phone a bit, he said he gonna see if he can scrounge up a few containers to put the rimguard in and i can come and pick it up. So far step one in progress. Tommarrow , istep two -it's off to local TSC for a tire fill coupler. I got a small liquid pump i can use so no extra cost for me there.

 

[radioman]

Whew! yesterday I added the rimguard to my BX24 rears turfs. I didn't use the air,hose coupler kit. Since I already have the manaul tire changer from HF, I broke the bead on the valve stem side. I checked the other side of bead to see if it was seal seated and it was. (didnt want beet juice all over the garage floor) Then I used the manual hand siphon pump to pump the rimgaurd into the tires. I then used a rachet strap to close the tire to the rim to get ready to reseat the bead. The bottom part of the tire wass already bulging from the rimgaurd. I was worried at first that i might get rimgaurd all over my face and garage so I used a rag to cover the top of tire. I found it wasn't needed. I did drip a little rimgaurd on garage floor when moving the hand pump to the next container. At first I was worried about stain on the garage floor since it looked just like a used oil change oil drip. I promptly wiped it and to my surprise it acted like a cleaner on the floor. I'll havew to look at the floor again today to see if there is overnight lasting effect.

Overall , If I had to do it again, I would. After only paying $89 with tax for the rimgaurd, gas for car RT and lunch on way back I certainly saved alot of money and it was worth my time. The dealer I bought rimgaurd from made me pleasantly surprised about good service and thier willingness to let me purchase just the rimgaurd. Thier mechanic Even took the time to chat with me about my ideas of adding the rimgaurd to the tire. ( FYI I was able to catch the mechanic at the counter since he was there for something else).

Today I plan to use the tractor and see how it handles with the rimgaurd added.

 

[Mickey_Fx]

See you got the job done so this can't help you but may be useful for others.

Recently had a rear tire (11.2X24) filled with Rim Gard. Took the tire down to the local tire shop and cost for the Rim Gard was $3.25/gal installed. Shop supply was in the form of a couple hundred gal tote.

Being in the PNW, I'm quite a ways from Mi, the headquarter of RG and with transportation cost being what they are, I suspect RG has their product formulated in several locations around the country.

 

[JDeerekid]

Whew! yesterday I added the rimguard to my BX24 rears turfs. I didn't use the air,hose coupler kit. Since I already have the manaul tire changer from HF, I broke the bead on the valve stem side. I checked the other side of bead to see if it was seal seated and it was. (didnt want beet juice all over the garage floor) Then I used the manual hand siphon pump to pump the rimgaurd into the tires. I then used a rachet strap to close the tire to the rim to get ready to reseat the bead. The bottom part of the tire wass already bulging from the rimgaurd. I was worried at first that i might get rimgaurd all over my face and garage so I used a rag to cover the top of tire. I found it wasn't needed. I did drip a little rimgaurd on garage floor when moving the hand pump to the next container. At first I was worried about stain on the garage floor since it looked just like a used oil change oil drip. I promptly wiped it and to my surprise it acted like a cleaner on the floor. I'll havew to look at the floor again today to see if there is overnight lasting effect.

Overall , If I had to do it again, I would. After only paying $89 with tax for the rimgaurd, gas for car RT and lunch on way back I certainly saved alot of money and it was worth my time. The dealer I bought rimgaurd from made me pleasantly surprised about good service and thier willingness to let me purchase just the rimgaurd. Thier mechanic Even took the time to chat with me about my ideas of adding the rimgaurd to the tire. ( FYI I was able to catch the mechanic at the counter since he was there for something else).

Today I plan to use the tractor and see how it handles with the rimgaurd added.

So how much did you get in each tire?