I need some help. With all the offroading I've done, I've never aired down my tires. Usually because I had no way to air them back up. I also didn't know how low to take them for any given terrain.

The terrain is almost always dry, loose rocks (about the size of softballs) with embedded sharper rocks.

So I could use some advise. How do you guys air backup? Tank or pump? How low should I be going?

Im using brand new 10 ply E rated General Grabber At2's. 245/75/16.

 

for air up, I use my sliders, as air tanks. need a new on board comp. mine died
I don't even bother worrying about the softballs(just sling'em ), but when i do air down, i usually go to 20psi. I have in the past gone as low as 15.

 

Sorry for the double post...

so you use your sliders as air tanks?? Isnt that risky?

 

Risky, you mean like rupturing them? Prolly, but Makes it exciting. I had an on board in the spot sls comp. used to be. Need new one. I keep forgetting.

(My ghetto fab Slider is like 3/16" x 2 on bottom)

 

Haha...that does sound exciting. ..

 

Ok, to air down, I pull the cores, count and put them back in. I usually air down from about 30 to 12 psi, and it takes about 30 seconds a tire. I don't have time for anything else. I've never lost a core, but I do carry spares. Valve caps will hold the air even without a core as long as they're not damaged. I use metal ones. For a core puller, I have one valve cap that has the nibs on it to turn the cores out.

You can get one of those aussie tools that pull the cores and hold them inside a tube for you but like I said, I've never lost a core yet. The arb version has a guage. I use a guage if in doubt, but go more and more just by the look of the sidewall.

I never tried those staun things. I don't want to wait that long, and then I heard they go off after a while, and the copies go off faster.

Air-up is a little harder. I use a viair 300. It's cheap and it works reasonably fast. There's no similar size compressor that's going to be significantly faster. Where the better compressors have an advantage is with longer duty cycles. But I have no problem airing 4 tires. It takes about 10 minutes.

What's going to be faster is anything with a tank. A CO2 or nitrogen tank is the fastest, but an air tank is going to speed air-up over a compressor alone. Since it's limited to about 120 psi, the bigger the tank, the faster. I don't have room for any kind of tank unless it was a really flat custom fabbed thing. I haven't done that.

Where the better compressors come in is once you have a tank and you want to use air tools and stuff that's going to keep the compressor running for more than 10 or 15 minutes without a break. Then you need a 100% duty cycle unit, and the prices just about double for that.

 

Oh yeah, if looking for techniques for air down. I carry 4 chucks that have the little friction catch to threads.

 

Thank you gentleman. All good info.