Ascinder's 1-Ton VX... Cont'd

[Triathlete]

Disconnecting the rear allows you to run a FWD vehicle which is good in some circumstances. When used in conjunction with cutting brakes(individual wheel brakes) you can pivot around corners unlike anything else. So yes, I'm totally doing that.

"Front digs" anyone?

[Ascinder]

So, a little progress update. My belt for the A/C compressor got here and was installed-yay. Also the shift rail mod to the transfer case is completed and everything reinstalled. On a side note, the transfer case guts look brand new inside with no signs of wear.
Anyways, for the purpose of this post, I thought I'd shoot out this little tidbit about some wheel tech. In assembling the Hutchinson double beadlocks, I wanted to look into the options to air the tires up and down quickly. Being bigger, they hold more air and therefor take longer to air up and down when you offroad. I had a set of caps on a keychain that attached to the valvestems and basically held down the schrader valve to air all four tires down at once. They worked ok, but were fairly slow. Another option is to pull the valvestems to let the air out even faster. Problems with that is that occasionally the tiny stems get launched into the abyss that is the great outdoors never to be seen again. So, I started looking into alternatives. There are a lot, but the one I chose was to use tractor valve stems. Reason being that they were the most effective out of any option and the most available anywhere in the US should replacement parts be needed. They were also the cheapest at a measly $4.50 each. Tractor valvestems have a removable core that is used to add either water or Calcium chloride as a ballast. Needless to say it would take a long time to fill up a tractor tire with either through the small hole that removing a valvestem provides so the removable section on a tractor valve is pretty big. People say these stems can drop a max air pressure 42" tire to zero psi in 20-30 seconds. The removable core of a tractor valve gets taken off by hand instead of a special valvecore tool, so when the air pressure decides to try and launch it, you have a much better chance of holding onto it. In the following pics I have three valves which demonstrate the size differences of the air passages. The small one is your standard size opening on a tire valve. It comes in at a whopping .010 square inch of airflow. The next size up is only slightly better at .027 square inches of throughput. The tractor valve however is .075 square inches which still sounds small, but is 750% bigger than stock. When has anyone ever done a mod that increased that much over stock levels of anything-no really, I don't need smartguy followup answers to that statement(you know who you are) Another thing to note is that the valves(all three) seal differently than your typical stock wheel valve. These valves are all metal with a rubber seal that sits inside the rim so it isn't exposed to sunlight or the elements. After seeing several rubber valvestems deteriorate and crack and leak air, I'm really liking this all metal design. The rims' valvestem openings had to be reamed out only slightly to accept the larger threaded portion of the tractor valves. The tractor valves also had to be turned down at their base from 7/8"(0.875) to 0.800" to fit in internal slot inside the rim itself. Without furter ado, Here's the pics:

The three different size air passage holes:



Side by side size comparison:




The tractor valve showing the core removed. As an additional note, the core contains a normal valvestem so these are still servicable at any location you would air a tire up at.



And that concludes this segment of Ascinder's fun yet boring facts about stuff you never knew or cared about. Tune in next week for my segment on tire doilies.....

[ZEUS]

BRAVO CHAP!! BRAVO!!! At least on the Hutch's you can tuck them out of the way enough to protect them from trail hazards.

[Marlin]

Over the weekend at Uwharrie, some Jeepers next to us showed me a neat toy. It was an ARB deflator, he said it was 40 bucks at a 4x4 shop in colorado. The way it works was like a normal chuck with a gage. It clipped onto the vavle stem, and had an adjustment screw that actually pulled the valve core out without the risk of losing the core!! Very cool and it monitored pressure in real time. I have a set of trailhead deflators and a set of smittybilt deflators, which work pretty good, but those tractor stems look awesome!!!