Calcium Chloride

windshield washer fluid,beet juice, stick around more will answer wwith more

Calcium chloride is the modern road salt. Softener salt is usually Sodium Chloride though sometimes Potassium Chloride (potash) is used. After seeing what Calcium Chloride did to a decently painted tractor when a tire split and pinched the tube on the inside sidewall, I won't use any of these again. Besides the tractor plowed better with the empty new tires than it did with the old worn tires.

Many a tractor rim has been eaten by minute CaCl leaks around the valve stem.

Beet juice sold commercially as "Rim Guard" seems to work decently without freezing, though I don't think its as heavy as CaCl and its harder to find and costs more. Winter rated windshield washer solvent has a following because its easiest to find in a big box store and at least as heavy as water without doing damage to the tube or tire from freezing and doesn't cause instant rust like spilled CaCl.

To get any into the tire, you turn the tire with the valve stem up and attache a gadget made for the purpose and hook up a liquid pump. You have to pause the pumping at intervals to release the air pressure and you generally stop with some air left in the tire so it can still flex.

Gerald J.

you can buy bulk fasher fluid, check with trucking company fleet as they have source or oil supplier should line you up with someone.

Methanol Alcohol works real well. Not as heavy or corrosive, but still a great job. HTH Tracy Martin

For a cheap way, go to your local auto repair shop and collect used antifreeze. Pump it in and forget about it.

Ted,  If you were further south - like AK, South MO, TX, and the like - you could use a few handfulls of table salt.  That would keep the entire tire from freezing and if it did you could break it by hitting the side with a crowbar. 

You can load your tires without apump. Mount a barrel on a stand so the outlet is higher than the tire valve stem get a adpt. [hose to valve stem ] tractor supply has them.  Put a valve on the barrel set the tire valve stem at 10 or 2 oclock  with no weight or air on tire , mix 5 lbs. cal - clor. to agal. of water, hook a hose  to the adpt. & barrel turn on will fill tire & burp its self, will take a few hrs. to fill. Ask tire man how much your size takes [ 11-2 - 24 takes 20 gals ]

My tires are 14.9 x 28's.  Is there a way to calculate the amount?  Should I re-use the cacl that is in one of the tires?  I don't know how old it is?  The other rear tire doesn't have any in it.

The old cacl works. It doesn't age, just has to be pumped out and a tire dealer used to handling it has the tool for that. My MF tractor manual mentioned how much CaCl it could hold and how much weight that added and farm tire handbooks like on line from Titan, Firestone, and Goodyear have tables of that.

Gerald J.

I should add that if you reuse the old stuff you won't know for sure how concentrated it is.  If you pump it out split it between two 55 gallon barrels (one for each tire).  Then add more water to each barrel to match the chart for your tire size.  Add equal amounts of CaCl flake to each barrel and wait for it to dissolve.   Start with about half the recommended amount of flakes and see how it does.    If the flakes pile up on the bottom and don't dissolve you've reached the max saturation point.   If you reuse your old stuff and it was the correct concentration about half of the amount should work out about right anyway.  Mike

I have searched the web for about an hour looking for a rear tire weight system.  It mounted inside the rim and gave you weight without fluid.  Has anyone seen this product?

Danny, the only thing that I could find for you is this:
http://www.jamesriverequipment.com/details/Agriculture/7730-Tractor
Doesn't help much though...

I use Propylene Glycol... RV Anti-freeze.  I visit the local marinas about a week or so after they've stopped winterizing boats... they usually have a pallet or two in 1-gallon bottles leftover, and I buy it for a few pennies over cost.

Propylene Glycol is non-toxic, so if you spill it, or puncture a tire, you won't poison children, farm animals or toxically contaminate your fields and well.  Not as heavy as some things, but it'll do the job nicely.

I use an old gear pump that I put on the tractor pto to pump the liquid in and out of the tube. It was used on a field sprayer and I put pipe to garden hose fittings on the pump and just switch the hoses on the pump to reverse the flow. Rinse the pump out with water and put oil in it when it is dry and you won't have a rust problem. I also put extra wheel weights on the tractors instead of calcium and water, no rust!!

tucker is the one i agree with,i have used prestone in all my tractor tires with no problems.napa sells an adapter for this procedure