Tonga Ridge 1/4/15

[christensent]

Went to a friend's place to do some welding on my axle, smashed my finger within 5 minutes turning the finger nail into a black throbbing pain, said screw it, grabbed an ice pack, and went to the snow.

Started out on a few inches of super slick packed snow. Dropped to 4psi after sliding a ways down a hill backwards.

Went in about 10 miles on snow traveled by some other Jeeps, snowed hard all morning. Turned up a more difficult steeper road that wasn't traveled today. Snow was 2ft deep up on that hill.



Went down a side road and tried to break trail but wound up in chest deep snow covered tree branches.





Two winchings got us out of that mess. Raining on the way out at lower elevations making for a scary exit on ice for a few miles.


How fast can I drive on hard pack at 2-4psi without damaging my tires?

[Nobody]

Nice! Looks like you're a quick study. A lot of new snow up there!

As for driving on tires with low pressure, it's more about how fast than how far. You want to minimize the heat. Make no mistake, driving on flat tires is very hard on the tires. Some brands and sizes tolerate low pressure better than others. That said, my tires are something like 12 years old and still going. They've spent much of their life under inflated!

Generally I don't worry about anything at 4-5psi. When I drop to 2 psi, I don't worry much while breaking trail since then snow and slower speed keeps the tire cooler. I do try to drive a little easier and try to avoid situations that might break a bead. You also want to avoid lots of hard bumps that can cause the wheel to contact the tire. A lot of times, we'll air back up to 4+ for the drives out. Helps with the steering too.

If you're on extremely slick ice, keep the pressure low and take it slow!

[christensent]

As for driving on tires with low pressure, it's more about how fast than how far. You want to minimize the heat. Make no mistake, driving on flat tires is very hard on the tires. Some brands and sizes tolerate low pressure better than others. That said, my tires are something like 12 years old and still going. They've spent much of their life under inflated!

Is 10-15MPH a good speed limit or excessively low? I haven't been going faster than that when down low, although at times it would certainly be nice when it's flat with no exposure risk. After going 8-10MPH for a while, the tire side wall felt a little warm when I stopped to air back up but not at all hot. I don't care about loosing a bead as I'm double beadlocked but I don't want my sidewalls to explode after airing back up! Tires are MTR/k.

[Nobody]

I don't think there is really any risk of the sidewall exploding. I've never seen or heard of it happening. Especially considering street pressure is is below 30psi. What happens is the sidewall rubber on the inside of the tire starts to break down from the heat and flakes off. In extreme situations, when you dismount the tire, you'd find handfuls of rubber. This generally happens at highway speeds.

So, I don't really have good answer for you. All I can offer is how I do it. At 4-5 psi, I just don't worry about it and I drive however fast I feel is safe (mostly ). At 2 psi I'm probably under 20mph most of the time, but I've never really paid much attention to speed. Keep in mind that it takes time for the heat to build up. So going a little faster here and there shouldn't cause any excess heat.

[n16ht5]

nice pics