Driving thru sand

[jedawson1]

I worked for an electrical co-op on the gulf coast for some time on a Pole Truck. Heavy, full of wire, parts and gear and driven only by the rear tandems. You would be surprised at how good you can get at driving through sand with a little practice. We would leave our trucks aired up and if we got stuck we would air down and get unstuck. Rarely did we ever need to be pulled out.

 

[DavidWymore]

Does anyone know how low one can air down the old style split rims with tubes before the tires start to walk on the wheels and tear the tubes/valve stems up?

Thanks

 

[doghead]

You can go as low as the TM or Dash data tag says.

 

[Andrmorr]

25psi is the sand/mud setting on the CTIS.

12psi is "emergency" (for extreme situations)

Drop it all to "Sand/Mud" (25), shut the truck down, unplug the computer and drop the rears (unloaded) to 17psi. Leave the fronts at 25psi. The speed limit at these pressures is about 25mph. The rears have no load (sharing about 10k lbs between the 4 of them), so you can air them down quite a bit further than the fronts.

25
17

With a truck that has CTIS, going this low requires a smart driver to have an air hose on hand I would think...if for some reason the tire looses a few pounds it will be below the 15 psi the CTIS is looking for and the system will not re-inflate the tire when you go to air back up...which would then require you to hook up a hose to the gladhand and inflate tire manually to get it back up so the CTIS will take over...a locking air chuck is worth its weight in gold (and less cramping of the hand) when you have to air up super singles...

 

[VPed]

Does anyone know how low one can air down the old style split rims with tubes before the tires start to walk on the wheels and tear the tubes/valve stems up?

Thanks

I was at 12 psi on the rears of my deuce and had two of the four walk. I now have MRAP wheels with bead-locks and can go close to zero with no issues (rear only and not loaded).

 

[Ford Mechanic]

Hey guys out this weekend on the beach at ramp 49 in Frisco NC. I dropped air to 35 psi the whole way around, left it in high, 6x6, and limited the Trans to 2nd. She marched right out there with no issues! I had to slow up as I was leaving my brother in the silver ram.

 

[Ford Mechanic]

I made a new air hose just to air this thing up, first of this week. It worked great. I used the clip on chuck so no more holding it on the valve forever.

 

[DJones]

It looks like you recruited a new helper for the airing up too.

 

[Ford Mechanic]

Guys this truck is one of the best vehicles I've driven on the beach. I've driven everything from Ranger's, Jeeps, 1500's, 250's, and 2500's. This thing handles the beach as well as any Jeep or Ranger. And with the setup I'm using it doesn't take much longer to air down and back up than any other vehicle.