reducing rolling resistance....

[sgreer78]

Let's hear some opinions on air pressure monitoring systems like "Cats Eye" and things like "tru-balance" things that center the wheel and brake drums instead of it just sitting on the hub and bring out of balance.

[heavyhaulerss]

Let's hear some opinions on air pressure monitoring systems

I just kick the tires.

[Musicman]

I started using Crossfires (similar to Cat Eyes) a few years ago, not primarily for the ease of determining proper air pressure in the tires, but more so I could ensure that any one pair of drives would have exactly the same amount of pressure. The biggest source of damage to drives in my opinion is having unequal pressure in adjacent tires, not over or under inflation. Think about it… if you look at tire manufacturers’ air pressure charts, you really don’t need more than 75 psi in a drive to easily handle 34k on your drives, and most people run way more than that in their drives, so under inflation unless severe in one tire should not be a real danger. The way Crossfires work, is that you order them at a preset pressure, say 95 psi. They link the air pressure in the two tires together, but have a valve that will close to isolate the tires if the pressure drops more than 10 psi below the setting to avoid running both tires flat (yes, it really works, I tore a huge hole in one tire and maintained air pressure in the other). The thing I have noticed over the years is that you can check all your drives when they are completely cold and make sure that they all have identical pressure in them. Then run down the road for a couple of hours and check them when they are hot and they will all have different pressures. The linking of adjacent tires avoids this. On our last truck, at the time it was stolen and after putting 500k miles on it, our cost in tires was less than 1 cent per mile ($.009018 / mile to be exact) and that was running Crossfires and Centramatics.

[lowrange]

I started using Crossfires (similar to Cat Eyes) a few years ago, not primarily for the ease of determining proper air pressure in the tires, but more so I could ensure that any one pair of drives would have exactly the same amount of pressure. The biggest source of damage to drives in my opinion is having unequal pressure in adjacent tires, not over or under inflation. Think about it… if you look at tire manufacturers’ air pressure charts, you really don’t need more than 75 psi in a drive to easily handle 34k on your drives, and most people run way more than that in their drives, so under inflation unless severe in one tire should not be a real danger. The way Crossfires work, is that you order them at a preset pressure, say 95 psi. They link the air pressure in the two tires together, but have a valve that will close to isolate the tires if the pressure drops more than 10 psi below the setting to avoid running both tires flat (yes, it really works, I tore a huge hole in one tire and maintained air pressure in the other). The thing I have noticed over the years is that you can check all your drives when they are completely cold and make sure that they all have identical pressure in them. Then run down the road for a couple of hours and check them when they are hot and they will all have different pressures. The linking of adjacent tires avoids this. On our last truck, at the time it was stolen and after putting 500k miles on it, our cost in tires was less than 1 cent per mile ($.009018 / mile to be exact) and that was running Crossfires and Centramatics.

Great observation there about matching up the pressure in the tandems. I've got a list of things I need to do and I'm trying to find a way to get my revenue up. As soon as the cash is there, though...