I suspect that some idiot was trying to steal one of my pickups and they got scared off the other night. I found some things disturbed. The foot of my gooseneck was uncoupled, and the toolbox on the front of my dovetail was opened, the one where I stow chain binders. But the pickup alarm went off and I came out about a minute later with a weapon-mounted light. I didn't look too hard cuz I never suspected anybody way out here in the country trying to steal a pickup. But the next morning I also found one of the tires on my maintainer almost completely flat. It has a slow leak but I just filled it a few days before. Is that something that these big old R4 tires will do?
Spray tire with soapy water look for bubbles
You're not hinting that they stole the air because they couldn't get anything else are you??? Air under pressure always wants out... sooner or later tires just let do it's thing but yeah... like BLS says check it with some sudsy water. -- no not beer....
I have been told " Sometimes they just go flat like that for no reason at all ". First thing in the morning trailer was backed up to the door. It always parked in the lot there. Checked it, broke it down, then checked the tube and found nothing wrong. Then that bit of wisdom was shared with me. I put it back together and he left. Later an old timer explained that to me. "He was late for work. Let the air out of the tire and waited for the shop to open. That way he was not written up for being late." No phones and such back then. Glad all you are missing is some air.
Yeah did that right away. No leak found. Got it soaking wet then used soap.
Dayam! They stole my air! And that was factory air from a fully factory equipped air conditioned factory...
I see some dry rot in that tire, them kinda leaks can come and go, dependin on which side of the tire has weight on it, when parked... If it leaks down, with the valve at say 12:00, mark, rotate a quarter turn, and let set a couple days, repeat as nec, to narrow down which 1/4 of the tire has the leak. Or just tube it, and be done with it...
I was thinking about Sliming it, but Tractor Supply is out of the big gallon bottles. Thanks for the other tip to try. Those suckers have 9 lugs, never seen that before. My 1 ton dually has 8 lugs and my F550 has 10 lugs.
Slime and dry rotted farm tires has not worked for me. I buy tubes now.
Darn thing about tubes in tires. The valve stem hole gets rusty and pitted. Then when a new tire is purchased, the air gets out around the valve. Of course, my backhoe is about 30 years old.
Mine is ~50 years old... I just make sure the wheel is clean and fresh paint on it when I have it apart... then plenty of talc
I have a similar issue with chrome wheels. Sooner or later that chrome flakes around the valve stem. I have one truck with Chinese flashy chrome wheels, the previous owner PO put them on. The tire store had to slather some sealing stuff around every darn valve stem. Bet that would work on our machines too.
Put some silicone around the stem if you're that worried. A little rust around the valve stem hole is pretty minor in the world of things that can go bad on tires like this. If you go with tubes, spend a little extra and get Firestones or similar. I've stopped using Asian tubes, even Korean. It's either reuse the old one from good old US of A, even if it's red rubber, or pay the extra $10 to get a firestone.
If I were the person doing the work... silicone is easy to do. But, the tire place refuses to do anything besides replace the wheel. Lawyers and liability are the death of repair. They have made our legal system into a lottery. So I took the wheel home, used epoxy to build up the area, shaped the hole smooth & painted it. Tire place then remounted wheel and valve.
I hate slime, horrible messy stuff that makes it darn near impossible to do future repairs. Never seems to do much to stop air escaping. Put tubes in, until the point that the tyre isn't safe/legal. Rusty valve holes are treated with grinders, wire wheels to make them smooth and use bead sealant on the valve. Can be built up with weld if badly pitted then dressed smooth. Tyres, wheel rims etc aren't the most challenging repairs.