preventing flat tires

[buckmaster]

just got a new 4320 for maintaining a 110 acres of deer hunting property. There are alot of honey locusts trees and other thorny trees around to damage tires. Anything i can do to prevent/easily repair tires if flat?? I live 4 hours away so i dont have much to work with when i am there.

 

[Farwell]

Not sure if this will do it for you but I keep reading about filling tires with foam so they no longer leak. There are some problems with foam filled tires when it comes time to replace the tires. Maybe some one else can point you to the thread with the information about the foam filling.
Farwell

 

[daedong]

Welcome to TBN

I would go this way. I am sure you want look back, it is a great product, have used it for many years in tractors. Go tubeless though. web page

 

[RedRocker]

I had pretty good luck with This

 

[KentT]

Will that work with loaded rear tires?

 

[PineRidge]

Haven't had a flat since we started using this flat prevention

 

[KentT]

Mike,

How expensive is the Hydro Seal product? It sounds like it might work well for what I need...

 

[PineRidge]

Kent I really didn't price the Hydo formula since our tires are not liquid ballasted so can't give you any input on price.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Don't you just love those honey locust trees?

My answer is Slime or some other tire sealant. My tires aren't filled but Slime has cut my flats from a record of 13 in one year to zero last year.

Oh, by the way, mowing doesn't kill honey locusts. In fact it can cause them to spread from the roots so you end up with a thicket of the monsters. I've started spraying them in order to kill the tree and then mow after it's dead. Even then, those thorns lay in wait for a long time just waiting to pounce.

 

[slowrev]

Bring back steel wheels for tractors ?

Guaranteed no flats.

Ben

 

[Wesdor]

Welcome to TBN. I see you are in Illinois, what part?

I had my tires filled with foam in June and posted pictures and details. You might find this thread to be of interest.

foam in tires

 

[buckmaster]

I live in Sandwich Illinois and the property i own is in clark county illinois, southeast of Champaign. What kind of tire places will do that foam thing?? Does it work if you use a fel?? Thanks for your reply!!

 

[19977]

I just did some checking on MULTI-SEAL. For my tractor JD 4520 R-4's, to do my rear tires (17.5-24)would be $197.60 each.To do my front tires (10-16.5) $79.80 each.The stuff sells for $.95 an oz.My front tires would have taken 84oz.each and rear would have taken 208oz. each.The prices can vary from distributor to distributor,my quote was from a tire shop in Milford,Delaware.

Mike

 

[KentT]

I'm getting a local price quote for Hydro-Seal -- their product for use in loaded tires. I've found it on the 'net at $179 for a 5-gallon bucket. (It's considerably cheaper than Multi-Seal, it seems, which is $269 for a 5-gallon bucket through that same distributor.) We'll see if a local distributor can/will come close to that price, to avoid shipping charges...

Here's the online distributor I checked:

Prevent Flats

With Hydro-Seal, you use a 1:10 ratio -- for every 10 gallons of ballast, you use a gallon of Hydro-Seal. I also confirmed with their technical staff that it's compatible with calcium, antifreeze and winter-mix windshield washer fluid -- the most common liquids used to load tires.

In comparison, a local tire shop in Worcester MA wanted $165 a tire to fill the four (4) 23x10.50x12 R1 tires on my PowerTrac with foam -- total of $660, plus tax. For under $50, I can get enough WW fluid to load all four tires, then add Hydro-Seal for $179 (plus shipping), and do it myself. Cheap ballast, plus flat prevention...

 

[Wesdor]

I do have a FEL and the tires work fine for me. I only did the front tires, but they told me that Alcoa in Bettendorf does front and rear tires on everything. The foam added about 80 pounds per tire and the cost was about $90.

I've been working in lots of hedge and locust and haven't been worried with the front tires at all.

Sandwich is a bit far to drive so our local dealer could fill them for you.

Good luck

 

[RobertN]

This would work
No Flat Tires /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[KentT]

Well, I could never find a local source of Hydro-Seal, but I ordered a 5-gallon bucket from the online source that I posted above -- with free shipping. I'll report back with my impressions, once I've loaded the tires and spent some time using it...

 

[N80]

Gemplers has a thick flat band of rubber that you put between the tube and the inner surface of the tire but that only helps with tubed tires.

We have a lot of honey locust too and it fequently flattens my in-law's front tires but he's never had a rear go down.

I'm just going to plug any leaks for now but if it happens a lot I'm going to look into the foam.

As mentioned, when you mow the stuff it just comes up from the stump in more stems with even more vigor. I've started cutting the bigger ones and then dumping undiluted Bursh-B-Gone on the stump and that works but it is tedious. Spraying diluted Brush-B-Gone on a full healthy tree or bush just makes it mad. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif