Man wow, 5 bedrooms on the beach in Corova, my how times have changed! I'm sure all you have to do is hit the ramp and head North till you see that monstrosity! LOL! They'll probably say, go 5/10ths of a mile past Penny's Hill and pull in! Bet you could find it on www.terraserver.com

 

Forgive my ignance. . . can you really use a scuba tank, with the chuck adapter to air back up? What are the specs on those tanks compared to the one on the group buy? My gf's dad is an avid diver with lotsa old gear ni his garage. Are they pretty efficient in executing the task of four tires? Sorry about all the questions, I just don't fully understand how the onboard works.

-Stu.

 

Nice place. I drive in the sand all the time here in W. TX. Airing down is great but I wouldn't go below 15 PSI depending on what type of rims you have. Some guys have no problems keeping the tire on the bead and others pop off as soon as you start to turn at 12 PSI. If you aren't sure I wouldn't do it the first time at 5 or 10 PSI with the wife, kids, and a ton of junk in the truck. I can hear that argument with your wife already.

I've done beach driving before and unless you are going to go into the dunes airing down may not be necesary. Just try to time your arrival at low tide so the sand is hardpacked and you can avoid the soft stuff closer to the dunes. In my experience 15-20 PSI is a good starting point for sand and often thats all you need to float over the sand better. If you have a Hi-Lift make sure you take a good piece of plywood to throw under the base to spread the weight over as much of an area as possible.

 

There are many choices in on-board air systems-

Small 12V pumps like an ARB provide enough air pressure to activate a locker and to re-fill tires at a relatively slow pace. Adding a small tank to the system helps increase the volume of air available. In most cases, they don't have enough pressure/volume to re-seat a tire bead. Cost is about $250.00 or so. A big benifit is once payed for, there are no additional costs, IE: Refilling

Larger 12V systems use a York AC compressor to provide a lot of air pressure. The disadvantage is, of course, you loose your AC...........but they will provide enough air to reseat a tire bead. There are also some "portable" York compressors available, but they are spendy- over 5 bills.

A Scuba tank is not a good idea. They could be potentialy very dangerous in a roll over or other accident if the valve was knocked off. As far as the useage of one, it would be similar to using compressed nitrogen like I did for a short time.

The nitrogen tank was charged to about 2500 PSI (slightly smaller tank than a 20LB CO2 bottle), and it would air up eight 35" MT/R's from trail pressure. Refilling the tank cost $16.00, so it was about $2.00 a tire. Nitrogen also has the potential for rapid decompression........but, it can also be used by people who are using nitrogen charged gas shocks to vary the settings of the suspension, perfect example is the Fox AirShock setup-

I switched to CO2, a compressed liquid, and it will inflate over 30 tires at a refill cost of $18.00 for a 20LB tank. I guess my average cost per tire is around $0.60, a lot cheaper than nitrogen, and it's a safer system. Even if the valve is damaged, the liquid CO2 can only vent at a lower pressure than a Scuba tank would- the CO2 would have to boil off vs. an "explosive" decompression. I cna set my regulator to 250 PSI if required, and provide enough volume at that pressure to easily re-seat a tire bead.


later

 

Even with your rigs loaded, I would hold off on airing down until you spot trouble. I was out there a little less than a year ago and even in the soft sand, 4WD alone did the job. We even loaded up 5 people and beach gear to head out one day and I didn't have a problem. Keep up your momentum and don't let yourself spin tires. At the earliest sign of your tires spinning, air down then! The hard packed sand is so hard that I was able to tow someone myself... though I dared not try in the soft sand!

My Jeep Rescue