I have one of the tires swapped out, and it is very similar to the stock turf tire:
The new tire is about 3/4" shorter overall than the stock one, but I think it really comes from the difference in the center "crowning" of the stock tire. The stock tire is very crowned, the new tire not as much. So in theory the back end would ride 3/8" lower than before, but I think that a lot of that crown actually just flexed inward. So it may ride almost exactly the same height as before.
Perhaps those crowned knobs dug harder down into the dirt and the new tire will slip easier than the old. It's hard to say.
Meanwhile, I had purchase a 16 gallon tub when I ordered the tires, to use it to capture and reclaim the liquid ballast.
It worked like a charm. Kinda.
I drained the tire into the tub, and used a wooden wedge to break the bead right there in place. With all the liquid lube, the bead broke easily.
Then I lifted the tire out and used an electric siphon pump to finish draining its contents into the tub.
It worked very smoothly, I spilled a total of maybe a half a cup.
Then I mounted up the new tire, inflated it enough to seat the bead, re-broke the top bead, and laid it down to fill it like I did the first time.
I used the same siphon pump to fill all the ballast right back into the new tire, shot some air in there to seat the bead, and *POOF!* the first tire was done.
It was when I was working on the second tire that I found out the downside of breaking the bead to pour in ballast.
I repeated the whole process, but after getting the new tire on the rim I had a terrible time getting it to seat the bead using air pressure. The second tire really sits narrower at rest, so if one tire bead is touching the rim, the other is a full inch away. I eventually carefully dried the rim and the tire bead, and used force to push the dry rim deep into the dry bead. The I flipped it over and with the first bead friction-stuck in place, I was able (barely) to push the rim against the rubber bead enough to get the air pressure to inflate everything nicely into place. I ran it up to about 35 psi, and then carefully left the dry bead in place while I re-broke the top bead.
And then filled it with the pump as before.
After I had it all filled, I hooked up the air chuck, shot the air to it, and wiggled the tire/rim to get the bead to catch and inflate.
But that's not what happened. What did happen was that the rim unseated from the lower bead and proceeded to gush out all 15 or 16 gallons of RV antifreeze right there in the middle of my shop.
A two-inch high pink tidal wave spread out 15 feet in all directions. The biggest loss was the value of the antifreeze itself, and the fact that it got the bottom of my plywood pile wet. So some of my wood/plywood will be stained and/or warped at the bottom now.
That and the fact that I don't have ballast in my tire now.
In addition, I spent the next solid hour trying to seat that bead with air. I tried doing it the same way I got it the first time, but I couldn't get it to maintain any grip on the rubber. If you slide the rim far enough the seat the front bead, then the back bead lets go. And vice-versa.
After a while I went and grabbed the starting fluid. Shot some in there, put the flame to it, and.. it caught fire. Put the fire out, try it again. Same thing.
Blast it out with air, try it again. This time a thunderous VWOOM! and the tire beads seated nicely in place. And before I could trigger the air chuck, the top bead fell right back down off the rim.
So I was sweaty, and frustrated, and my back was killing me, so I finally gave up.
Later on I ordered an inner tube, took a shower and a bunch of ibuprofen, rubbed some Capsacin on my lower back and put on a back brace.
It appears that the "break the bead" ballast method works best on a dry tire, especially one that's been installed for a while.
But on new tires going onto wet rims, I currently have a 50% catastrophic failure rate.
So I'm going to have to figure out how to pump the ballast into a tube. Full stop.
Bob
"Never be afraid to try something new. How hard can it be?"
