Now I'm stumped. They don't show my tire size. What shall I do? Maybe my tire size is not recommended HAHAHAHA.

We'll we can't go back to try it under the same conditions, kind of a shame. It might have been a good test.

Next time something similar happens, we'll have to see what airing down would do to help.

A few weeks ago, at Evan's Creek, wrongway Bill was stuck at the entry climb into 197. Wet slick rock with mud on it, almost like ice - at least he thought so. We took him down from 22 to about 12 pounds and that enabled him to get up. We should have aired him back up afterwards since he was running AT tires. We spend a good part of the day pulling wood out of his rims. We all know that Bill is or was a little heavy on the pedal.

His was a good example of airing down too far for the tires. I was running 10 lbs, Robin was a 3-4 lbs and we didn't have any problems, but Bill's tires at about 12 lbs didn't have enough strength to keep the bead tight. We think his street rims were part of the problem as well. They didn't want to hold the tire well. This is a case for good tires, which Bill has now. We were able to take the tire that came off the rim, and with a crow-bar get it back on the rim. You can't do that with a swamper or similar good offroad tire.

 

While we are talkin' tires here, take a look at my TXRs here.
http://www.pnw4runners.net/runs/8302/61024.jpg

We took Andy's new Tundra upto the gravel pit Sunday at Greenwater to test it out.

We got into a little snow, but not much.

Now lets say I wanted to go up there in a few weeks or so just for a drive and explore higher up, or parts of 72 where the snow gets a foot deep.

Since it's not a trail, but a snow covered forest service road, should I stay at 15 PSI, or chance it too 12?

These are not an AT tire, but an MS one I guess, so would I be taking a chance at spinning the rim or popping the bead?

Though my Power Tank can reinstall a bead, I have never done so.
That's what we gotta do sometime, is pop a bead off a spare tire or something when we are all up there, and do some practice on it.
I'm curious about it since Power Tank claims it can reseat a bead while it's on the rig still.

 

You shouldn't have any trouble down to 12 PSI unless your rims don't like it.

Are you familiar with reseating a bead with a powertank? Have you seen it done? Do you carry the gear for it?

It can be done, but it takes practice and patience until you get it down to a science. I have a disposable spare I use for demo's at the Trail 101 classes you are welcome to practice on at some point.

Having done it with a powertank and the old fashioned way, I still do it the old way. It seems to be less work and always works the first time.

 

Ya if you know how to use a match.:pat:

 

Rob, let us know when you're having your Trail 101 class. If you're not opposed I have some people who'd probably like to come. BTW, you can use our church course to do this if you'd like. We won't even try to get anyone in the front door :chicken:

We do however have lots of obstacles in a nice open environment. Mud, log crossings, off-camber, rocks, ditches and even a good place to get the winch out.

I''ve already had lots of high lift practice over there, getting myself out of trouble :o)

 

Rob, thanks for the reply.
No, I have never reseated a bead, and only seen it done the fireball way on the 'Net in vids.

From reading on PT's site, they make it seem like all you have to do is turn up the pressure (I always set it to 150 PSI for airing up) and stick it on the valve stem, make sure the tire is off the ground like with a Hi-Lift, and blow away.

It it that simple, or is there more involved such as a strap?

Gibby's lot sounds like it would be a cool place to do this sometime.

 

A strap is not necessary, but can be helpful for a difficult tire. The powertank actually does a nice job because you can get some volume and pressure.

Often only the outside bead comes off. You can get the tire off the ground and pull the tire out to set the outer bead. Keep holding until it pops on tight. If both beads are off, a strap is pretty much a must.

The lousy part, is that a bead doesn't come off on a nice flat open surface. Everytime I lost a bead (with my old tires) It was on a down hill tire with all the weight shifted on that end and it was is snow/mud, what a mess and what a pain... Sometimes you almost have to drive on the dead tire just to get to a place where you can safely work on it, and hope you don't shred the sidewall. If you have lots of help with multiple jacks, winches, comealongs, the job of fixing this in a lousy position get's much easier.

Reseating the bead is not all that hard, IF you have lots of air.

 

Cool. Thanks for the offer. I do a series of the classes in the Summer time, this past Summer I think it was six of them. I will touch base with you when I begin to plan again and see if the facility is available.

As you know, I don't melt from entering, I just don't see the point.

 

You need to have a valve that can be opened suddenly. Beyond that, it will depend somewhat upon your tire. Some tires are super easy to reseat others require that you put a cinch strap around the tire to squeeze the bead up close to the rim for it to seat. It takes practice.

 

It looks like we'll have the site for about the next 2-3 years minimum and perhaps as many as 8-10 years. We hope to do some more improvements this month as well, including a mine field. This will be full of various size ditches, holes, dirt mounds etc.

The current course starts out with a mud pit, then goes over a peaked hill (cross over angle). You then have to cross a berm that's about 4' high on a diagonal, to get to the mogules. This tests off camber pucker factor, articulation and line choice. You come out of the mogules to a 45 degree banked curve. The next portion is through a series of ditches that get larger and larger and are various lengths apart. At some point, most rigs require a diagonal approach. Round the corner we have a lower mud area which mostly for playing it as it won't likely get so deep to cause any real problems. Then it's up the hill through the rock garden. Varous size boulders are tightly strewn across the field. You can wind your way though, around or over different bolders. Next we like to go through the banked curve and mogules in the reverse direction, then down through what will soon be the mine field. At the bottom again is where we'll be putting a log crossing. A 3' deep ditch and about 15' log. To get across it you have to drive across two logs. The final portion is up a hill that is littered with different size logs, the last being over 2' in diameter.

Every spot has an out or easy way through and you can also choose more challenging lines just for fun.

 

Sounds like fun!

Couple of suggestions;

A winch practice area with anchors.
A mock hill climb. (not steep or large, but coated with pea gravel)
A sand pit.

 

Sounds like the gravel pit up at Greenwater would be cool for that too.

Only snow is on the cutoff from 70 to where you get onto 72 that leads into the pit right now as of last Sunday.

The pit is pretty much snow free.
Corey

 

A winch practice area we have, but we'd need to install some anchors. that's a good idea. Although last week it got a little easier as the dumped 3' of fill dirt at the bottom of that area. I couldn't make it up this are before. Can't do the pea gravel on this spot as it's to steep. I can think of another spot however that we could do this, with several big trees to anchor off. Now all we need is a truck load or two of pea gravel...

Sand is tough only because we don't have sand. We could make one if we could find someone willing to donate a couple dump truck loads of sand.

 

Sneak down to Alki Beach at night :eek: with a few dump trucks.

 

You sneak down to the beach, get the sand, and we'll built the sand trap...

 

Y'all can be glad for ROb's winch all you want, but I am the only one who can be grateful for the title of "first pull".....Now if ROb would re-pay the favor on Sunday ;-)

 

That would be true... It was your up to the door sills stuck in the mud where I got to test it out for the first time They say you always remember your first... hehehehhehe

You keep saying that I now have to be your first pull, but if I get stuck, I can just winch myself out, right? hehhhee

We shall see on Sunday, the weather is supposed to be pleasant, so once the sun gets over the ridge, it's going to get cold and icey out there... I predict unpredictable conditions. hahahha

 

Yeah so...dont ruin all my fun..

besides you could always end up in a perdicment that would be bad to winch foreword... See you on sunday

 

I am not trying to ruin your fun... heheheh Just trying to avoid being your victim.

...and don't you know? It's bad Karma to wish these things on someone... If you the Karma comes back to you and you end up on MY winch again, I don't know if you will ever live it down... hehehhe

See you Sunday!

 

Snow update. There is none :o(

We were all over Evan's Creek today. The only thing we found was very, very icy roads/trails, or nothing.

I was as high as about 4200' yesterday and only hit a couple of areas with more than 6" of snow and that was in high, North facing shaded areas.

I hope you guys have better luck than we did.