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Our adventure has begun
Hello,
All wanted to let you all know that our 14 month adventure has begun…. I had this all typed up last night and the site must have went down right as or just before I hit “post” so hopefully the length of my post didn’t take the site down 🙂
We were scheduled to leave St. Louis at 8am… in doing my final checks I checked the pressure for the first time since we got the coach in December… (my bad) started with the drivers steer and noticed white puff when I removed the gauge and then pretty serious air noise… it’s happened before so I got out my valve tightener and that didn’t correct it… so I worked it back and forth a bit thinking I could clear it… what I ended up doing was removing it and then had a heck of a time getting the cap back on to keep the tire from completely deflating…. but I did it… Called coach net and they sent someone right out to replace it and found several others that were causing issues as well as an loose valve nut on the interior drive that required jacking the bus up and removing both drive tires to tighten.
The tire tech thinks I have balancing beads in the steers and they didn’t use the correct valves to keep it out of the valve… Any thoughts on that?
Next question… I was prepared to follow the inflation recomendations based on my axel weights but the tire tech suggested that I run the Drives and tag at 100psi when based on what I found online for my weights they should be 90 and 80 respectively…. any thoughts on that?
So we ended up pulling out at 5pm and arrived in HHI yesterday evening about 6pm…
It’s going to be an adventure and I am sure we will learn a lot along the way… thanks to everyone here for helping us so far… We have a blog if anyone is interested it’s http://www.fogartyadventures.com…. you will need to register to access it
Thanks again
Bill
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2 Replies
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Have a great trip!
FWIW, I over inflate my drive and tags to 100 psi as well. I haven’t noticed excess tread wear in the center of the thread so I’ll stay at 100 psi.
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Equal does require a Schrader valve with a screen to prevent problems as you described. Every bag of Equal comes with a new valve so it is surprising they were not installed.
Having said that I prefer to wear suspenders with my belt so in addition to the Schrader valve I also use this on all valve stems: http://www.alltiresupply.com/p-43-098.html I NEVER use valve stem extensions.
As to inflation pressures the Michelin tire pressure chart is what they need to be inflated to. You will learn “old wive’s tales” such as the tire guys wisdom on tire pressures is little more than fertilizer. Unless mechanics, tire changers, and others who work on our coaches present me with their educational credentials proving they know more than the folks who built the product I stick with what the manufacturer says. Having said that I add 5 PSI to my tires for a little cushion and to compensate for a tire pressure gauge that might be a little off. It is always better to over inflate than to underinflate because if you run a tire at 20% less pressure than what is called for you have just ruined it.
Have a great trip and enjoy it. And don’t forget if you run into anything along the way that requires answers or advice we have a lot of members who will be more than willing and capable of offering help.
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