Airing down?

[kohldad]

Based on my Compressor Recommendation thread, I now have a nice ViAir 450P compressor to air back up. So now it's time to start thinking about airing down.

I'm use to airing down my jeep to 15psi when I took it off-road, but have never aired down a heavily laden vehicle. I'm figuring with the TC on board, something around 30 psi may give the tire a nice float pattern for soft sand. Since I'm only at 2,500 tire, may be able to go as low as 25 psi.

Was looking for advice and experience for those more practice driving off-road.

[brholt]

Airing down?

What's that?

You guys need to find some new beaches. Go ahead and bring your 19.5 tires out here to Washington and Oregon. Then you can just go out and drive on the beaches. The ocean here knows how to well pack the sand. :B

Unaired down 13,700 pound dually on the beach


(Don't blame me if you get stuck getting to the packed down sand :))

[77charger]

with my 2500 hd and 265/16 tires i can go to 20-25 and have no problem on soft sand at glamis or lake powell lone rock.Now if im towing a flatbed trailer with buggy at glamis i need to go to 15 all the way around.If at powell and need drag boat on soft stuff i go to 12psi and lower the boat trailer to about 20.

As for no camper and towing toyhualer (20ftr with 4 seat vw rail)3/4 mile across sand at glamis its 10-12 psi and trailer to 30 i have tried with 15 psi and couldnt make it got stuck had to go to 10psi.

Whoever mentioned pismo beach that sand feels softer i need to start at 10psi towing toyhauler(no camper)and 2 kid quads in bed of truck.

[Bedlam]

I've aired down my 19.5's to 50 PSI to go across soft sand. I made it but struggled where the other guys dropped to 20 and were able to float much better over the top of the sand. I knew better, but my buddies promised to drag me all the way if I got stuck - It would not be somewhere I would venture alone.

The truck does just fine in snow and mud. I did have to drop it into 4wd to retrieve my trailer after sinking 4" in rain saturated ground. The ground swelled with the water it collected and the tires did a good job of rutting it out even with no tire spin.

[btggraphix]

I'm with you Mark.... bums me out to realize this is really the one kind of driving that I am simply not likely able to do much of (mine does great in the snow, but sand?) I would still very much like to do some testing sometime and see just how my dually 19.5's would do. The tiny bit I have hit in Moab in search of camps sites have been OK, but I'd need to be REALLY prepared to even begin to see how it would do on a beach, probably with a few other rigs around for help. I was oh-so-tempted to drive out onto the sandy flats along the Green River by the Gates of Ledore, but having a long drive in front of us to get home, and knowing we were on our own there...prudence won out.

Oh well, like Steve points out, it is all about trade-offs.....

[dadwolf2]

JacintoKid wrote:

~DJ~ wrote:

do most of you guys air down on rocky mountain trails?

Yes...at least I do!

[av8rds]

Not many 992's out there. I'm sure I have seen your rig several times.

Muley and Shard wrote:
Well, it's winter again and time to think about beach camping. We have a Lance 992, easily over 4,000, probably more like 4500 loaded with water, me and Shard and Emma the dog, groceries, beer, gas, 2 batteries, 2 propanes, genset, A/c, firewood, beer, well you get the idea. We had it on the 2500HD last summer and did the beach at Sandy Neck with Toyo stock size A/T's. We found that 30 rear 22 front was just the right amount of "sag" to the sidewalls.
I thought for sure we would get stuck, that camper is a LOAD, but we drove right out first try and it became a non issue after that, even in the deep soft stuff pulling out of the ruts. The people that run the place are pretty militant about psi, supposedly will fine you if you are above 18, but when I got the rears anywhere near 22 they were just about on the rims.
A note about deflators, We have trailheads but never stick them on and go, for the 5 minutes it takes to watch them work and take them off before we roll, we would rather wait and be sure. A friend of ours drove his 4wd Winnie out with the deflators left on and woke up the next morning on a deserted beach with 4 flats.
I was going to leave a picture with the old truck but it's a little too complicated for me to bother. Maybe when we get the new dually out there, before and after.

[Muley_and_Shard]

Well, it's winter again and time to think about beach camping. We have a Lance 992, easily over 4,000, probably more like 4500 loaded with water, me and Shard and Emma the dog, groceries, beer, gas, 2 batteries, 2 propanes, genset, A/c, firewood, beer, well you get the idea. We had it on the 2500HD last summer and did the beach at Sandy Neck with Toyo stock size A/T's. We found that 30 rear 22 front was just the right amount of "sag" to the sidewalls.
I thought for sure we would get stuck, that camper is a LOAD, but we drove right out first try and it became a non issue after that, even in the deep soft stuff pulling out of the ruts. The people that run the place are pretty militant about psi, supposedly will fine you if you are above 18, but when I got the rears anywhere near 22 they were just about on the rims.
A note about deflators, We have trailheads but never stick them on and go, for the 5 minutes it takes to watch them work and take them off before we roll, we would rather wait and be sure. A friend of ours drove his 4wd Winnie out with the deflators left on and woke up the next morning on a deserted beach with 4 flats.
I was going to leave a picture with the old truck but it's a little too complicated for me to bother. Maybe when we get the new dually out there, before and after.

[F450WHEELS]

Steve_in_29 wrote:

F450WHEELS wrote:
I go to Pismo beach at least once a year pulling a 20 inclosed trailer with a F450 with 19.5 tires and I air down to 20 psi all the way around with no problems.

You have been very lucky. Your tire maker would definitely inform you that airing down that low is a bad idea. All the .5" size wheels have NO bead seat and the ONLY thing holding the tire on the rim is AIR pressure. Plus those tires are not made to flex as much as that low of pressure will allow them to.

Did your tire shop perhaps use rim glue when mounting the tires? Might hold bead in place but will make replacing the tires a real bear for the next shop.

I must be real lucky I do it every year, tires were installed by ford at the factory.

[Steve_in_29]

1971amerigo wrote:
I might add to this topic.
A set of automatic tire deflators is a great investment.
I have purchased the Staun TRYE DEFLATORS.
They work great!

Until they don't. 🙂

Something the off-road crowd has learned is to keep a sharp eye on the "automatic" deflators because if one sticks (and they do) you will quickly end up with a flat tire.

I used to have the Oasis automatic deflators but they were problematic. Now I much prefer to use the Oasis manual defleators. They are not automatic and will indeed let all the air our if you let them but I have never been surprised by one. For my Bronco I simply screw on the first one, count to 20 and then screw on the next one. Repeat until I am back at the first tire and it is down real close to my desired trail pressure. Remove deflators in the same sequence and adjust tires for final pressure.

[Steve_in_29]

F450WHEELS wrote:
I go to Pismo beach at least once a year pulling a 20 inclosed trailer with a F450 with 19.5 tires and I air down to 20 psi all the way around with no problems.

You have been very lucky. Your tire maker would definitely inform you that airing down that low is a bad idea. All the .5" size wheels have NO bead seat and the ONLY thing holding the tire on the rim is AIR pressure. Plus those tires are not made to flex as much as that low of pressure will allow them to.

Did your tire shop perhaps use rim glue when mounting the tires? Might hold bead in place but will make replacing the tires a real bear for the next shop.

[1971amerigo]

I might add to this topic.
A set of automatic tire deflators is a great investment.
I have purchased the Staun TRYE DEFLATORS.
They work great!

[F450WHEELS]

I go to Pismo beach at least once a year pulling a 20 inclosed trailer with a F450 with 19.5 tires and I air down to 20 psi all the way around with no problems.

[molzep]

We drop the rears to 25 and the front to 20 but after 1/2 of driving (back in the days that Nauset was 9 miles long) the tires got hot, pressure went up. We had to lower the pressure more or wait for them to cool. Sometimes the wait on the beach isn't a bad thing!

[msiminoff]

av8rds wrote:
I know one guy who does it regularly with 19.5's and know of another that does it with no adverse effects.

I do drive on Pismo beach several times a year with my 19.5's... with two people in the truck and motorcycles in the bed. I have aired the tires down as low as 50 PSI and never had one de-bead, but I don't dare go lower than that. I've been able to drive pretty much everywhere in the dunes, but I can and do get stuck very easily and I can't even dream of using 2WD on anything but the flattest hard-pack sand.

I would never ever ever drive on the beach with 19.5' and my 3500 lb. camper on-board unless I had somebody in another full size 4X4 to pull me out when I got stuck.

I should add that my brother has a nearly identical truck as mine but he runs Nitto Dura Grapplers in a 285/75-17 and airs down to ~25psi on the beach and tows a toy-hauler. The difference between where our two trucks can go is night and day!
-Mark