Expo Member needs help - tires

[DiploStrat]

E-Mail Received

And answered.

Sounds like you are in good hands! Stand by for breathtaking bills! I assume that you are at Beda Servicios - the only dealer I can find in Trujillo.

Small update: Looking at the Peruvian Yellow Pages, the Dunlop dealer in Lima advertises lots of suitable tires in 7.50x16 and even some labled 235/85x16.

 

[dhackney]

We have tires.

Goodyear 7.5x16

Higher weight capacity than the Yokohamas, which is good for us, considering we weigh about as much as a typical ocean going ship. A large ship.

Details tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Doug

 

[Redline]

I can't wait to hear the details of your purchase and see pics if you have that ability right now

We have tires.

Goodyear 7.5x16

Higher weight capacity than the Yokohamas, which is good for us, considering we weigh about as much as a typical ocean going ship. A large ship.

Details tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Doug

 

[DiploStrat]

I can't wait ...

for the next "Autopsis."

-- It was getting dark as we climbed past 13,000 feet on that lonely Andean road. The sky was threatening and the snow began to blow. A sudden lurch to the right told me that all was not well.

As I stared at the shredded carcass of the tire, I thought, "Nope, a plug isn't gonna fix this one!" I panted in the thin air - this wasn't going to be fun.

Then I remembered; I had loaned my jack to a friend on our last trip. I pulled my jacket tighter as the snow blew harder.

Click to read more ...

 

[dhackney]

for the next "Autopsis."

-- It was getting dark as we climbed past 13,000 feet on that lonely Andean road. The sky was threatening and the snow began to blow. A sudden lurch to the right told me that all was not well.

As I stared at the shredded carcass of the tire, I thought, "Nope, a plug isn't gonna fix this one!" I panted in the thin air - this wasn't going to be fun.

Then I remembered; I had loaned my jack to a friend on our last trip. I pulled my jacket tighter as the snow blew harder.

Click to read more ...

Fred,

This great stuff. Can I use you as a ghost writer? I'm sure you're looking for something to do in all of your spare time...

Doug

 

[DiploStrat]

Why not?

I'm am suffering terminal writer's block on a telegram that I want to send. (Good thing I'm getting on a plane tonight - I'll deliver it in person.)

As you might guess, my last post was a (very) true story. (OK, it was the jack handle, not the jack - artistic license.) The end of the story involved a pickup, a bus, a garage, and a Goodyear dealer, all several thousand kilometers apart. You can see why your story had a personal touch. (Pity you didn't shred your tires in Bolivia; I have MUCH better contacts there. And yes, I do know Evo.)

So get your show back on the road, we're all awaiting the next installment.

-- It was ten o'clock at night, but the good news was that the town had electricity, the station had gasoline, and I was now the proud owner of 80 litres of it.

OK, make that 79 litres and dropping as the bottom of the tank was making like Victoria Falls. I got out the flash light and slid under the truck to take a closer look. It was hard to see in the dark but I soon discovered that I was parked in the wrong place and the Siafu were not at all pleased! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/3086.shtml) A terrible time for your Lomotil to wear off.

Click to read more ...

 

[dhackney]

I'm a little pressed for time and bandwidth, so I won't do anything as entertaining as Fred's proposed story line.

If I did, it would go more like:

After more than a month of driving chicken bus roads, where our typical day's average speed hovered around 20 to 30 kilometers per hour (12.5 - 18.6 mph), it was heaven to be on the Panamericana cruising along at a blistering 80 - 100 kph (49.7 - 62 mph).

We were so enamored with the smooth asphalt and warp speed we were able to more-or-less ignore the pervasive, endless-border-town creepiness of the Panamericana.

As I hummed along with the first music pumped out of the stereo in months, I plotted the hundreds of kilometers we'd make in the remaining hours of the day. I planned to drive deep into the night to make up for the many hours of errands and provisioning we expended before our departure.

My mental map was well up the coast toward our destination at a small coastal village for a GivingPictures project when my daydreams were shattered by an explosion from the rear of the Fuso.

I dropped off the throttle and gently applied the brakes, working our way onto the narrow shoulder. I had to wait for a break in the traffic before I could open the cab door and run back.

At my first safe opportunity, I sprinted down the left side of the truck. The outer duallie was good. I ran to the back and looked down, the inner one was OK too. I jumped over to the passenger side and there it was, the inner tire was shredded. Exploded. Disintegrated.

And there we were, with one multiple-patched spare and the other with a split sidewall, its patch nothing more than a symbolic statement that the tire could still hold air as long as no weight was placed on it.

I looked up and down the desolate stretch of the Panamericana. A bus roared by at 120+ kph, barely making a dent in the steady-state force 8 winds peppering me with sand.

I glanced to west, then held my arm out, palm inward. Four fingers between the horizon and the sun.

"We've got about an hour," I grimly said to Steph.

Her hazel eyes, windows to her moods, set into a determined gray and we went to work...

***********



S7.49688 W79.41186

First look.

Neither of us saw any road debris, so we think the tire just disintegrated. When the inner tire blew it took a chuck out of the tread of the outside tire, but we didn't have a spare to replace that one. We would need to crawl back to Trujillo and hope it stayed together until we got there.

What an exploding tire will do to a heavy gauge stainless steel fender liner.

The tire change.

The detail.

The promised land.

With real truck tires.

And even a pneumatic impact wrench, a rarity in our experience with tire shops in Peru.

They offered to brand our tires for fleet management / inventory control purposes.

 

[dhackney]

But, since our fleet consists of one (1) vehicle, we thought we could do without it.

While waiting for the mounting and balancing, we got to see how you set the bead on a tire without a machine or a belt: you fill a tank with air, stick the flattened output tube down into the bead/wheel junction, and open the valve.

Our new tires are a little bit narrower than the OEMs.

But, they are load range F, and increased weight capacity is highly valued in our fleet operation...

The specifics are:
Rear: Goodyear G46 7.5 x 16
Front: Goodyear G32 7.5 x 16

As you probably noticed, I did what I said I couldn't do and put two different tire models on the front and rear.

The reasons I did that are:

1. These are matched tires from Goodyear designed for driven and steering wheels respectively. The diameter, loaded radius, etc. are identical.
2. We wanted to try to lower the level of tire noise on the front. The difference is very noticeable. Our eerily quiet cab just got quieter.

So far, so good. I'll post up on how they ride, handle, perform, etc. as the trip progresses.

 

[dhackney]

Thanks to everyone in the community who posted recommendations for us.

I printed out the thread, carried it around and referenced it as I looked at potential candidates at the Goodyear shop.

Special thanks to Charlie and Fred for the 7.5 x 16 information. I would have been hesitant to go that route had you both not educated me on that alternative.

You all really came through for us when we were in a challenging scenario.

I hope I can return the favor someday.

Be well,
Doug

 

[DiploStrat]

Bravo!

Going up to 8 real plys and belts and truck vs. "off road" tires may be one of the best things you could do. Your language may get a bit colorful if you encounter real mud, but, as you have probably noticed, there is no where near as much of that as people think. I have noticed any number of trip threads where folks went the hi-ply truck tire route and never regretted it.

Except in the Amazon, in the rainy season ... and did I mention the road to Loja?

But then that's why you paid for the winch, right?

Safe journey!

 

[dhackney]

Fred,

Based on our travels with the truck to date ( > 26k miles), I think we will be OK with these tires in terms of tread pattern on the front.

Like just about everyone else out here, we very rarely use our 4wd. As you mentioned in a separate thread, overlanding is very different from sport 4x4 / weekend adventures.

We've got tire chains if things look really nasty.

And, as you've pointed out, with our weight, we'll get stuck in the mud anyway!

Re: winches
If I knew then what I know now, I would have not put the winches on. Instead, I'd put Euro truck tow hitches front and back and bring a Euro tow bar. There is always somebody coming along, and in the places where they are unlikely, I could unload a bike and go seek help.

Between the winches and the weight of the cable (wire) to power them, we could have saved a LOT of weight.

Doug

 

[DiploStrat]

I think winches look way cool - but in over thirty years I have never needed one.

I'm off to the airport for 24 hours in cattle class - oh joy! May be time to start writing "The ZEN of Overlanding, or, Why Overlanding is not Four Wheeling." (As if I could actually open the computer in those seats!)

THAT might prove a contentious thread!

G'nite and safe travels!

 

[dhackney]

The Promised Land

OK, inspired by Fred, I created a full version of this little adventure.

The entire story, including material "never before seen in this thread," is here: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/peru/docs/thepromisedland.pdf

 

[M.Bas]

The team at the Goodyear shop, from the owner to the technician, was efficient, fast and very professional.

That is exactly my experience with (I believe it was a Michelin shop) a tire shop in Italy. My rear rpassenger tire got punctured while driving down from a mountain pass.

I speak absolutely no Italian at all, but it took them less then 20 minutes to figure out how to remove my rear tire (mounted on the bracket of the spare tire), remove the tyre, figure out where the tire and inner tube got punctured, find a new inner tube, put everything together, realise the new inner tube was also punctured, get another one, put everything back together again, balance the wheel (3 times, the first two times the machine wanted to add more and more weigth eventhough placed on the spot it wanted it), remove my spare tire that was mounted on the rear axle, mount the fixed rear tire, put the spare back on its place (slightly smaller than my regular tires so driving them for a long time is not a real option) and finally check the pressure on all my tires.

Checking the air pressure myself at the gasstation takes me about 5 minutes depending on the amount of air to be put in the tires.

Those specialised tire shops are like a F1 pitstop :bowdown:

 

[FusoFG]

Based on our travels with the truck to date ( > 26k miles),

Doug,

Glad it finally worked out with your tire problems.

How much tread depth was left on the yokohamas? From the pictures, it looks like between the bad roads and your "weight challenged camper" there weren't many miles beyond the 26k you mention.

You experiences remind me of a few guidelines we've adopted for our travels in our FG camper.

We only try to get 36,000 miles on our tires. With our weight of about 10,000 pounds we can get nearly 48,000 miles out of the tires, but we don't want to drive on those last 12,000 miles when we're on bad roads in remote locations far from home.

For us it doesn't seem worth it to risk our lives and the tens of thousands of dollars we have invested in the vehicle to squeeze out a few more hundred dollars of tire wear.

My grandmother would've called that "Penny wise and Pound foolish".

Plus, it's always more fun to change the tires at your leisure before you need to.

From your pictures it looks like 24,000 miles might be a safe limit. Maybe the new load range F tires might go longer.

To avoid the pain of a 6 tire purchase we purchase 2 new tires every 12,000 miles for the front axle and move the fronts to the back and remove the 2 tires that have 36,000 miles on them.

Your story of changing the tire with an hour of daylight left, the warning from the locals about banditos and then crawling back to a "safe" spot to spend the night is the reason we stop for the night well before dark.

It's easier to find and set up camp in the daylight and if you do have a problem you have some daylight left to deal with it.

"Driving deep into the night to make up for the many hours ..." doesn't sound like well thought out strategy.

Good luck on the rest of your journey and be safe,

Tom