I have 40 ply old minning tires on this blade and want to get something else not so bad about getting stuck all of the time with the rock tread, we have lots of sand and black gumbo ans these tires are horrid in sand or mud????
What kind of hard rock lug exactly are you talking about and how much cost vs the other tire???
I was wondering if anybody is running a set of 18x25 tires on the rear and gone to some kind of flaotations on the front tires, i have a 16 and it is so heavy i could use the wider tires on the front but there are no 18x25 radials for sale where i buy tires, i have been thinking about getting 20,5 for the front but they are shorter than the 62 inch tall 18x25s??
Our tire dealers in this area are also telling us that 18-25 are all but impossible to find. We had a set on an old Terex loader that were bad and ended up changing all to 20.5-25.
the 20.5 should fit on 18-25 rims. The rims may be a little narrower than what a standard 20.5 rim is, but should work. We havent had any problems with the 20.5's on the terex. We went to bias tires just because the loader does not get used much and the tires will probably dry rot before the tread is wore up. As far as the cat 16.....?. I have no clue if it will work or not. sorry not much help today but that is the way it goes, Some days chicken, some day feathers.
I already drove the blade around but only got one side to break loose from twisting and breaking flat on one sidelol Whats crazy was the idiot poser that came out to allegely dismount the tire, he thought it was like a tractor tire with no rings or oring, its a 5 piece wheel with oring to seal the bead, he suggested taking removing the wheel with a bead removal tool, so he went back to town to borrow one, anyway he came back with one for a tractor, a manual set up, it would not work as it does not push the bead enuff, its stroke was too short the the 18x25 tire!! It takes one made for the actual job, omg, i could just see this idiot trying to take wheel apart and reassemble it, i told him it needed a new oring and a ring safetly lock that was missing, his suggestion was to call the dealer, I told him the dealer is you!! Anyways he gave up with no chargelol I been measuring the 20,5 and looks like i will get one mounted and try it on the rear to see how the clearance issue is, whats crazy is trying to figure out if a newer 16g with 23,5 x25's had what width wheel and what offset??? I am going up to San Antone Tex this morning and try to see if Holt Cat has a new 16 in the yard to spy on, actually while looking thru the cat 16 parts book i find the machine had 24 inch wheels on the front and 25 inchers on the rear from the factory, so the saga continues, found 4 or 5 more used tire dealers last night to call and beg for tires today when i get home, still up in the air if i will just get to good used at $1250 each at 50 percent 18x25's mining tires or new dirt L2 type bias 16 plys 20,5x25's at $1000 each new, I just wish i new if they would work or the rear drives without hitting and also if they will fit on my 18x25 wheel, the book says the 18x25 tire needs a 13 inch wide wheel, the book says the 20,5x25 tire needs a 17 inch wide wheel, question is can a person make a 20,5 fit on the narrower wheel n be ok??? 4 inch difference could lead to hell on earth trying to get the rings back on without a tire press of some kind to get room for the rings to fit on the beadlolNo doubt the tire is stuck to the rim. One can spend all day trying to get it off the rim......or one can let the air out and drive it around the yard.lol Anyway, good luck getting the tire changed. let us know if there is any interference with the chaincase.
What kind of hard rock lug exactly are you talking about???
Thanks so much for posting up, I was thinking i was going nuts or something, thats the same thing i have run into down here and on the web at all of the tire places i could find to call and ask for tire 18x25 in recap or a good used, looks like thats is what i must do as well, i actually have 5 good tires and one ruined, but its cheaper to go to the 2 inch wider and about 5 inch shorter 20,5x25 bias tires in 16 ply L2 i found for about $1000 each vs the 18x25 in 38 plys that are $2500 plus shipping that i found and cant stand anyway due to them slipping on anything where i use the blade
18x25 50 percent used i find for like $1000 to $1250 plus shipping in the E4 38 ply rock tread and very far away, its right there where it does not make sense to buy them vs buying 2 new tires on the front in 20,5x25 16 ply bias that are readily available down here $980each, overnight, this blade has been down for 2 months while i have been trying to sort this out, if i was contracting be titts up, we just have a 1800 acre hunting ranch with 20 miles of roads in a wetland area down in coastal south texas that have to be run out about 2 to 3 times a year due to ruts and wash outs, sometimes we get 100 inches per year sometimes like this year we have had 3 so far so i can wait until i get good tires on this giant blade, I have had to have a 1 1/8 town cable made up and try to watch where i am working with the machine, its so heavy and big and powerful that sometimes while i am blading in sandy loam with a short grass cover running out bar ditches the land will switch to sand in a instant and spin these tires befor i can stop and it burys it to the tandeums, I have a old 76 Mack winch truck with a Tulsa 70 winch and rolling tailboard that i usually have to tie with heavy chains and double snatch blocks to get the maintianer unstuck when i get stuck in the blowsand break thrus and the mud sticks ocassionally, i try to avoid the known spots of sticking but sometimes just backing up gets me buried as these rock lug tires do not pull in reverse and it just trenches down and its a walkout to the old Mack, thats why i am really wanting to start replacing the mine high ply radials with L2 grader type tires eventually, i know the fronts wont make much difference but i can afford to buy a complete set right now but can afford a pair for the front, I am going to ask as well when i do get this 20,5 wide tire selection figured out and start mounting them on the rear drive wheels should i reverse one pair or tires to help me with backing out in mud and sand vs the normal all pulling tread the same way?? I have had some old ranch hands on a ranch next to use tell me this over andover that when they still had a maintainer on their ranch they ran the tires in a set like this so they could back up and pull both ways instead of the normal pulling one direction, it makes sense to me and i am going to try it i figure, whathappens down here is the hunters come down for a month only in rental cars usually and we need the road to be pothole free and draining so i am forced to run the blade earlier than i would on a normal job where could wait a extra week to let it dry out so as not to get stuck, whats crazy about this jbsite is it can have one end muddy and the other end is dryed up getting stuck in hot dry suagar blow sand so its always dangerous to work, the blade is so much heavier than the old 14 e i had for years i am still getting used to the break thru feel from the front tires due to the 55,000 weight of this blade, thansk to all for posting, all ihave to do now is make sure the 20,5x25 will fit on my 18x25 wheels and not lower the machine to much, truthfully, a couple of the 18x25 radials are so low tread the new 20'5x25 will be the same height or very close, i am worried about the 20,5 clearing the chain drive boxes in the back but will know by taking one fo the extra front 20,5x25 i will prob buy now and test fit it to the rear to run it a bit to see if it willhit, i know it is shorter and can not be run over 15 minutes due to the mismacth in tire heights but need a test run before i end up with 4 ties i can not run due to hitting or something, i may be borrowing trobule i dotn know, just need to run this by the grader gang guys to see if my head is thinking right!! Thansks so much,
the 18x25 rock lug 36 plys are 63 inches new, the 20,5x25 bias 16 ply bias are 58 inches so it should work, we will see, i going to look at some cat 16 pictures with floats on it to see if they used the same wheel as i have and just put the wider tires on it vs getting new wheels wider than stock, 2 inchs wider should fit on my stock cat 16 wheels i figure, thanka again for the ideas!!! Has anybody installed 20,5's where 18x25 were before and did you have to get new wheels or have interference issuses?? What tire did you go to, a bias or radial type and what lug type and where did you buy it and how much did it cost and in what ply?? I have 5 piece wheels on the 16 and i am just not sure, are all of the new bias ply offered now tub type or can i run them tublelss like the 18x25 that are on there now??
The reason I asked, Queenslander, was that we had rock lug tyres on a Komatsu GD625 grader and they were not very good at all for traction, good tough tyres for rocks, which we do a lot of, but not traction. We fitted Michelin non directional radials and they were a lot better. The other thing which I think affected the traction, was that this grader had been fitted with 17.5 x 24 tyres and while you would have thought it would improve traction, it seemed to have less ground pressure with the larger tyre area, which created more wheel slippage, adding more weight may have helped. Our Champion 720, on 14 x 24 tyres has a lot more traction.
RnR.
Rock lugs ? Radials ? What for out there in the outback ? look it's a fine line out there. Some of those sticks that flick up after your blade has gone over them are sun dried have been siting there for christ knows how long and there just like driving over a steel knife. Rock lugs will cut down on the punctures but you won't get any traction. there not designed to work in sand and out back materials. Radials ? yeah right as I said those sticks will go strait trough them. It's part of the hazzard of the outback. and believe me I know. Stick with the standards your going to get a flat whether you like it or not. and there cheaper to replace after you get your 600 th puncture. She's rough out there stick with it.