Rim Gaurd vs CaCl

Colin King

Well-known Member
There have been a couple of questions lately about Rim Guard. I was at my local ag tire shop this afternoon and since they are dealers I thought I would get the answer from the horse's mouth.

Rim Guard runs right around 11# per gallon and has a freeze tolerance of -35F (it gets slushy at this temp). It will Freeze solid at -50F. They told me that a lot of the big farmers in the area (potatoes, corn, soy, & lots of smaller dairies here) are switching over because of the non-corrosive nature of the product.

CaCl is 11.5# gallon and has a freeze tolerance of -40F (depending on mixture ratio). Tire shop confirmed that if you have a good new rim, tube, and maintain valve stems, you should get a long life (he said 30+ years) from a CaCl loaded tire. But if you have a leak or a flat in the field....you have to clean the rim down to bare metal, reprime and paint, and you won't be growing anything where the leak occurred for a long time.

Rim Guard is about twice as expensive as CaCl.

Hope that answers some questions folks had.

Colin, MN
 
Flats are very messy and expensive to repair when the tire is filled with Rim Guard as well.

In northern climates, many shops are discontinuing use of Rim Guard because it is difficult to impossible to pump in cold ambient.

Dean
 
That is good info Colin.
Just the facts.
I'll still take cast iron though.
I've never seen my wheel weights leak out into the ground when I had a flat.
 
Agreed, UD.

I like the versatility of cast iron weights and change/repair my own tires. I do not want to deal with liquid ballast.

Dean
 
You probably hit the nail on the head why many tireshops here in Wisc. are not recommending rim guard. When it first came out, it came from Michigan, and was the hot item. Now, the trend is reversing.
 
Hi Colin,

If you hang around old tractors long enough, you tend to accumulate CaCl by the barrel full. And it costs nothing, as used stuff taken out of tractor tires that have to be fixed or just emptied to reduce soil compaction. I have a few barrels of the stuff. Sure I have steel weights for some of our tractors, but they do not add up to the maximum weight that you can get from using chloride. Steel weights have their disadvantages as well, namely getting hurt while you are installing or removing them if you are working alone. A common price for steel is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1/lb. Maybe you can get lucky and find those weights for half that price, but it is still a bunch of money. If I recall correctly, you can get about 300# of chloride in each rear tire of the N, or you can use any amount less than that depending on the amount of traction you are wanting.

I see plenty of complaining on this board about how destructive chloride is to a rim. Consider that most of the rotted rims are original to their 60 year old tractor. And it is a hat rim, such a shame, but it can be easily replaced with a 6 loop rim for under $150. I am still using some of those 28" and 38" loop rims that have chloride for more than 50 years. And sure, I have replaced some rims on the vintage tractors I have. Chloride is destructive to metal, but it doesn"t do it quickly. And sure the spilled chloride can mess up the soil and your clothes if you have a tire puncture. Have you ever seen the bare spot in our front yard where my 8N got a stick puncture through a very worn rear tire? I can"t see it either, because it became productive soil again the next year. Rain and snow melt will dillute the spill enough that trees and grass will soon grow back. And the washing machine fixed the chloride drenching my clothes had.

Bottom line is if you want cheap weight year around, use chloride, but have a good inner tube and a solid tire. If you only want the extra traction during the growing season, you can fill with straight water at 8#/gal. You don"t need an expensive pump to move the chloride or water in/out of a tire. NAPA and others have a connector that attaches to the valve stem of the tube and allows you to attach to a normal garden hose. I use 2 such connectors and a "donor" wheel/tire to move the chloride in or out of a tire with only compressed air, and it goes pretty fast, maybe 10 minutes to fill a tire. Brian (my son) and I have even moved the chloride out and back into the big tractor tires (18.4 X 38).

Price out a used set of pie weights for the N, and you too might start using cheap or free chloride. And it can safely be handled by a guy working alone. Maybe it sounds like I like CaCl, I very much dislike working with the stuff, but it is cheap and does the job.

Some of the farm tire manufacturers have published a phamphlet on tire size and chloride density mixes that shows the amount of weight and gallons that can be put into a tire. I have a copy but can"t find it this minute.

Paul in MN
 

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