Thread: Towing vs. Being over gvm

Originally Posted by Tombie

But nothing beats driving to the condition, correct pressures and most of all - Reading the track surface....

Absolutely. But you can still be unlucky. Long day, tired, momentary lapse of concentration. Easy to do.

There's really no one right answer to this. Sometimes a second spare is warranted, sometimes it's not. What is absolutely irrefutable though is the less weight you can carry, the better.

Cheers,
Jon

I have 5x 697s and one second hand 2nd spare that was free for this trip.

The 697s continue to impress. After all that harsh rock driving through the Hamersley Ranges they barely copped a scratch. And i made the mistake of dropping pressures too.

What impressed me the most was that after driving around with worn shocks which caused badly scolloped edges, they've worn back to perfect.

You didn't make a mistake dropping pressures.

You MUST adjust pressure or you'd be more likely to slice them up...

Ah i see...This is what I thought and why i did it. But then someone pulled over while i was airing up and said they leave theirs at road pressure due to the sharp ore rocks slicing sidewalls. .. Hmm.

Originally Posted by Russrobe

Ah i see...This is what I thought and why i did it. But then someone pulled over while i was airing up and said they leave theirs at road pressure due to the sharp ore rocks slicing sidewalls. .. Hmm.

Too soft and you'll slice up the sidewalls, too hard and you'll slice up the tread. Just got to find the right balance. Where that is will depend on the tyre and the load. I probably drop them less than most, say around 4-8 psi from road pressure, but it really depends. I just try to find that point where I'm getting enough flexibility in the tread without the sidewalls bulging out. A lot of it is feel and I think it is important to learn to feel what your tyres are doing rather than trying to follow any hard and fast rules.

Tombies point about driving to the conditions is still the big one, but of course you can still be unlucky.

Cheers,
Jon

Originally Posted by Tombie

See that damage a lot with Coops for one reason or another.

A few plugs was not going to fix that.

As you can see it was a clear graded road but with a rocky surface at times.

We all aired down to low 30s psi.

I spent 5 years at Tom Price in the eighties and blew many a tyre on the Tom Price-Nanutarra road as it was a dirt road back then and it was pretty much Mandatory to carry 2x spares just to get you through due to the sharp rocky nature of the road.
Yes tyre technology has come a long way in the last 30 years But the dirt roads in the inland Pilbara haven't improved that much over the same period.
The mining companies that I have worked for up there still recommend that you carry 2x spares when travelling in the area.

My wife lived in Tom Price in the later 80s...

She recalls many long drives and no punctures