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Changing a tire on a 5 ton

diverman555

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Friday I was pulling into my driveway and stopped, when I heard a loud hissing sound. I was the air leaving my left front tire in a hurry. I got the truck in a good spot and stopped.
I jumped out of the truck and saw a split 6" long on the inside of the tire. I got my tire tools out and was going to work. The lug nuts on the left side are reverse thread so I gut the
3ft' bar out and nothing, all I managed to do was bend the bar some. I called some roadside tire repair shops and they wanted some serious coin. I finally reached this guy that knew me from circle track racing.
He said he had a guy that lived just a couple blocks from me. He said he was going to have him bring the service truck home that night, I could get the tire replaced on monday
and he could come back and torque them down. He said they were torqued down to 500 ft lbs.
My question is my trucks came with 2 different jacks, a six ton and a 8 ton. Both are bottle jacks, but neither one would pick up the truck. What size should I have that will lift this truck up.
Thanks for the help.
Mark
 

patracy

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6 ton = 12,000lbs
8 ton = 16,000lbs

939 trucks weighs 10 tons or more.

FWIW, I've lifted a single tire off the ground of my 543 wrecker with a 8 ton jack. (To place on a jackstand) It was slow, but it worked. Your jacks should have lifted it. Unless the set screw wasn't completely tight or they were low on fluid.
 

doghead

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Where did you place the jack? It needs to be as close to the wheel as possible, to reduce it's load.

Please post pics of the tire. Was this tire flat when you bought the truck?
 

Recovry4x4

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Travel on bottle jacks is minimal. This problem can be amplified by large super single tires. A chunk of 4x4 and 6x8 are good to drive the flat tire up on so that the jack will have enough travel to complete the change. FWIW whenever I fell a slash pine here I leave at least 2' of stump sticking up. From that I saw off the sides and make myself a 6x6 or 6x8 to use around the house. Another thought, most bottle jacks come with about 2' of jack handle. How much did you have?
 

tie6044

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I can change a tire on a standard cargo 5 ton with my 3 ton floor jack. As mentioned keep the jack as close to the tire as possible. I use a 12 ton bottle jack for my wrecker though.
 

jwesley74

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I can change a tire on a standard cargo 5 ton with my 3 ton floor jack. As mentioned keep the jack as close to the tire as possible. I use a 12 ton bottle jack for my wrecker though.
We changed both our steer tires on M925 with floor jack. Just kept as close to tire as possible. Only needed it to take weight off to slide rim/tire off. 1st 1 we used multiplier to break our lugs loose but 2nd 1 we used 1" ratchet standing/jumping on it.
 

Recovry4x4

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air down the tires on the opposite side air up the other 2 tires on the bad side make sure you chock everything well
Can you please expand on this? I'm trying to figure out airing up and down unaffected tires will help him change the left front flat.
 

camogriz

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I believe the laws of gravity and physics come into play by lowering air pressure on tires that are diagonal from the tire you wish to lift. It should require much less effort by the jack to raise the flat tire if the diagonal tire(s) are not resisting by being fully inflated and then by extension requiring to overcome the truck's suspension. Almost like a see-saw or teeter-totter.
 

Heavysteven

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This is getting complicated. If you let the air out of the other tires then you'll have more flats to change. Sounds like a vicious circle.

Would just get a 10 ton bottle jack, couple pieces to 2x6 cut 10" long, a jack stand, and a 1" impact.
 

silverstate55

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I picked up several 20-ton bottle jacks from Harbor Freight when they went on sale...they work wonderfully. I also carry large blocks of wood to prop up the jack on, so that it doesn't run out of cylinder lift before lifting the tire off the ground.
 

Karl kostman

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I had just changed to singles on my 925 and made it a total of 14 miles when I had a blowout on the front passenger side tire, I of course had not tools or spare with me so I called a buddy who came over and got me in his pickup and took me back to my shop where we loaded up the spare, a 20 ton bottle jack and my 3/4" breaker bar headed back to the truck and had the tire changed in about 35 minutes. When I went to singles on the truck I thought about WHAT IF I HAVE A FLAT, well in all my years of driving these trucks its not happened, WELL it did, NOW I carry everything I could possibly need to fix a flat on the truck including an airline with a pressure gauge built in. Just in case!
 

jarhead1086

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I just discovered that the Michelin XZL's I bought have run flat inserts in them. I was wondering why they were so stinking heavy. They also have MRAP rims that need to come off. My questions related to tire changes: 1) any clever tricks getting these rims out above letting the air out first and brute force? 2) having no experience with run flats, can you fix a leaker in the field or do you just drive on it until you get back to your garage? Reduced speed without air pressure? I would think the bead may want to jump off not knowing how these fit/load yet. They will help the jacking height issue for sure.
 
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