I'm hoping there's still some tire experts on the forum. I have foam filled tires on the back of my Champion grader. They work great for general grading and driving relatively slow, 10 MPH or so. I want to drive the grader to my new property that's 10-12 minutes away in a vehicle going 50-60 MPH. The tires are actually grader specific and from what I've read are suitable for higher speeds when compared to loader tires. I'm wondering if I'd need to drive slower due the foam filled tires and/or stop to let them cool off every few miles? The tires do squat and perform like air filled tires. I think being tandem drive puts less load on each tire as well. Would be great if it rained when I was driving but that's wishful thinking. Hoping someone has experience with foam filled tires.
Most telehandler tires I've dealt with were foam filled for ballast. You could rip along in top gear without any issues. We did get a bad batch of tires where the foam must've settled because you'd get bounced right out of the seat in 2nd gear.
Drive it at 10 mph like you normally do, take a 6 pack along and you should have a couple left for the ride back home. I would not think for one single second about roading the machine 10-12 miles at 10 mph.
Yeah I wouldn't worry about it. I once roaded a Gradall 534C telehandler about 12 miles down a major US HWY. It had foam filled tires. Main thing is just keep an eye on the gauges.
The tires are Goodyear radials rated for 25 MPH. Wasn't sure if the foam fill would cause extra heating or would deteriorate at higher speed. I think it's premium foam fill being the tires are a high end tire.
My TLB had foam filled front tires and I never had any problem roading it 15 miles at a time.
That grader will only go about 40 45 kilometers an hour. My Volvo hits around 48 kilometers an hour
I think about 45km/h. That's why I was hoping I could drive close to top speed. I think I'm going to test it on the road a bit. I'd hate to get part way to the new property and have the transmission kick out. It does that some times. I put in neutral and it goes again in a few seconds. I can't faintly see a code in the gear display but can't make out what it is. When it looks like 1 it will move again. Does your Volvo have the 11 speed transmission?
It does yes. It will only go to 11th gear in travel mode. I once drove our 730 for 3 hours from one job to another. Depends on how evenly filled your tires are. You might not get up to speed
I can slow down if it rides rough. I just don't want to wreck the tires.
All the telehandlers that I have roaded with foam filled tires- the ride will determine your speed. They tend to ride pretty rough. I think your grader will be the same. Why? Take your time, the machine will let you know how fast it want's to run. If you're worried about the transmission dumping out, heat and speed isn't going to help. Two of my regular daily use cranes don't run the best at their max speed. One because the tires, the other one the transmission heats up. So we just don't run max speed.
I was just hoping to go at least 15-20 MPH. I want to drive to the property, do some work there and then drive back. I don't really want to leave the grader there until I have a gate and it's more secure. Hoping it doesn't take an hour each way.
I was going to say your steering play might not even make it that fast
Steering is pretty tight. I could drive in top gear (8th) a little less than half throttle or 7th at full throttle. Any faster it started to bounce. I drove in 8th to save a little fuel. The 8.3 Cummins is pretty easy on fuel though. I figure I could go 20-22 MPH. took half an hour to drive. Not much power going up hills but only a couple to navigate. The new scarifier teeth I put on did great to dig up the approach so I could take out some brutal holes in it. Dug up a medium size square edged rock too that could have damaged a vehicle. Grader never skipped a beat driving there and back. At one point when experimenting in the field it didn't want to move but putting it in neutral for 15 seconds seemed to reset it and no more issues after that.