Can anyone tell me if "Unimog Wherehaus" is still in business? Trying to contact them, but the # listed on their website is not correct. Looking for tires for around $300ea and they list them. Also went to CSM Army, but they dont have any in stock. Anyone? Anywhere? Thanks in advance!
Thanks guys. Ended up getting them from EI MPT Tires. $475ea. Not bad. On a related note, do any of you recommend Tire balance beads? Or nothing at all. Would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!
Maybe I was just lucky, but I've never seen the need for any balancing with my 14.5x20 Conti MPT's. I have fast axles and can run 65-70 MPH WFO. I feel no vibration serious enough to worry about.
I suggest mounting the tires and trying them out before messing with any balancing material. Maybe 416 wheels are more true compared to 404's ?
Okay so tires are mounted with 14oz of beads in each. Like having power steering now. Did anyone have that experience when they went to a bigger tire? Also I'm all over the place above 40mph. They are toed in but I'm wondering if I need to tighten the draglink bars or steering stabilizer bar. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
The question that comes to mind is what's the condition of your suspension? Did you replace the 4 control arm bushings? How about the shocks? Springs? Knuckles? Kingpins? Had an alignment recently (to factory specs)? Anything appear bent (seen a few control arms bent on the site)? Adjusted the brakes properly? Portals worn out? Etc, etc....
Springs, shocks, portal, king pins all okay. New draglink bars, new steering stabilizer. Alignment have not done. Nobody around to do it so I have to learn how to do the string technique. I understand these are much bigger brand new tires and I am going to feel it, but it's almost scary on pavement. Have not notice anything bent. Will take a thorough look tomorrow.
Found that the Kingpins are done for. Ugh! Oh well on with the fix. "The FLU Farm", the tires are inflated to spec @ 95psi. Thanks everyone for the help! You guys are awesome!
Okay, by inflated "to spec" you probably mean to maximum inflation pressure. Without looking in the load charts for that size tire, I'm guessing that the load capacity at 95 psi is around 5,000 lbs., maybe more.
If so, 95 psi would be appropriate for a vehicle weight of 20,000 lbs. If your vehicle weighs less than that the tires are over inflated and the steering would feel lighter.
Thanks guys. I was for sure going to go down to 85psi for winter, but am rethinking now to go down to at least 88psi now. I'll let you all know and see how it turns out next week.
Don't know where you came up with 88 psi, but once you know your axle weights, look up the correct pressure in a load chart. It'll most likely be much lower.
I think many overlook the fact that it's not the tire that supports a vehicle, it's the volume of air inside it.
You can get more volume by using a larger tire, by increasing the inflation pressure, or both. Either way, the tire is only serving as a container for the air, not as a load bearing part per se.
So putting larger tires on a vehicle means that the inflation pressure should be reduced accordingly. Whatever the correct pressure for your old, smaller tires was is now too much.
The numbers on the sidewall stating a maximum pressure is just that; it's the allowable maximum inflation pressure, not what you're supposed to use with lighter loads.
I understand that and thank you. I got this information from Scott @EI. I will see how it goes once I get the new pins in and double check everything else. Thanks!
Misunderstood for sure. Where should I be between. Getting a lot of advice. Want to make sure. I understand the chalk thing, but want to have something to compare to. Thanks and sorry for the miscommunication.
I would tend to trust the tire industry rules. At least a few of those guys appear to have a pretty good grasp of what tire pressure should be for a given load. Enough so that load charts were produced for all of us to benefit from.
Still, there are variables and the best pressure for the application will often vary a bit, up or down, from the rule.
And there are always the tried and true methods such as using chalk as Scott suggested, driving a wet tire onto dry pavement, taking temperature readings, etc.
The goal is to have the tread contact evenly and hopefully then also wear evenly.
In your case, you'll loose the "power steering", but your butt and the entire vehicle will thank you for lowering the pressure to something that at least resembles a correct pressure. Try it, you might like it.
FWIW, over the years, I have messed with tire pressure on and off for the MPT80 14.5R20's (otherwise known as 365/80R20's) on the 416 DoKa and come up with something around 45-50 PSI front and 35-40 PSI rear on the road. Off highway, I run them WAAAAYYYY down. This is on a wet but unloaded truck which weighs in at about 10,000 lbs. These MPT80's are the "little" ones with only (!) 10 ply ratings.
If you study the capacity chart, you'll notice the MINIMUM loads talked about for this tire are 1445 Kg (3180 lbs) at 2 bar. My unloaded truck is 30% BELOW that number if you average the weight across all 4 corners. Technically, the tires are over inflated at 2 bar (30 PSI). Of course, on a 416 like mine (with a flat bed load area) the front is considerably heavier then the rear, thus the split pressure.
These are MPT tires and are considered low inflation pressure types - not high pressure highway tires ! If you pump them way up, you're going to run the centers out of the tread and probably cause massive scalloping along the way. AND, cause horror show steering.
I just want to thank everyone for their advice. Being a fairly new Mog owner and going to the larger tires, it is all new to me. Learning curve. I will be using everyone's advice and will be posting the end result in a couple weeks. Thanks!
Well gentleman the tires are on and the outcome thanks to all is perfect! Running fronts at 38psi and rears at 32psi. How did I get to these numbers? Trial & Error for sure. But they are running at an even wear. The king pins weren't as bad as I had thought, but I will be replacing them non the less. Thanks again. And I hope you all like it. The Porcupine rides again!
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