Check those valve stem nuts

Stripit · 01-17-2011, 05:40 PM

Have had the trailer & truck parked for the past 3 months in a dirt field in storage. Went yesterday to pull it out and get ready for a small trip to the MS rally in Lake Havasu. Upon the initial walk around one trailer tire looked ever so slightly different, I thought it had just settled down into the dirt a bit. It had no look of being flat and the side wall was not bulging. These are the 17.5 inch Goodyear 'H' rated tires that I run at 110psi. Started the truck and turned on the TST system and went out to get ready to leave. Within a minute the monitor was screaming and flashing that tire was 54 psi. I went back and looked at that tire and the one next to it, no way did it look flat. As the system warmed up all the other tires were 110, 108 & 107. I could have looked and just pulled out had I not been warned. As I went to fill the tire, I found the nut that holds the stem ever so slightly loose and only took a 3/4 turn to stop the bubbles being made by the soap I sprayed there. I wanted to make sure that it was not the tire sensor leaking. Goes to show you can't tell by just looking any more if a tire is low. Today I went out and removed all the sensors and checked all the other nuts on the valves. All were loose, at least 3/4 turns to tighten them up. Maybe it might be something folks need to check every so often.

edt · 01-18-2011, 05:25 AM

Had the same problem with truck tire

golf_bears · 01-18-2011, 09:50 AM

Same here, have had the problem also. Takes continuous vigilance when dealing with these heavy weights and tires.

Motor31 · 01-18-2011, 11:00 AM

Just a part of routine maintenance there but often overlooked since we are used to rubber tire stems on almost all our other vehicles.

Just an FYI. In Washington I broke a valve stem. Having had a hard time in Tucson just getting fresh rubber gaskets for the thing I was worried since we were on the wrong side of the peninsula for most services. I found that the local Les Schwab had them on hand. They also deal in commercial tires so a great resource for class 6 through 8 haulers (MDT to HDT) for tires as well.

They swapped out the stem and didn't charge me for it. Very unexpected and MOST appreciated. Will be going back to look for drive tires next spring / summer there.

rotaxman · 02-01-2011, 01:08 AM

Noticed on this junk 09 I have that one of my tires looked low today. It has been very very cold here but it was much lower than the rest.

Since we have about a ton of snow coming tonight and some bitterly cold weather coming for the rest of the week I decided that I would check out the stems. I've only had the trailer since last July and it has been pulled no more than 500 miles.

Sure enough all 4 of the stems were very, very loose I'm surprised that I didn't have them all go down. Mine were like Stacey's at least 3/4 of a turn to get them tight.

As always good camping

Jerry

Stripit · 02-01-2011, 08:35 AM

At the Havasu rally I checked about 8 trailers close to me, and only one had tight stems, seemed he read my post and tighten his up. Some were really loose and took more than 2 complete turns, scary. It is now something I will check twice a year for sure.

bstark · 02-01-2011, 06:10 PM

Stacey; Perhaps backing the nut up a few threads and a drop of Lok-Tite on the threads with the nut then being run down tight might prevent a problem?

I intially had a problem finding a thin-wall socket to fit mine. It's been a long time but I believe it was metric I needed as well.

rotaxman · 02-01-2011, 10:38 PM

Bruce,

You are right it will take a thin wall socket and a metric but I got by with using a 9/16 box end 6 point. It fit good enough that it didn't turn the corners. I just didn't have my metric's handy at the time.

Mine were extremely loose.

As always good camping
Jerry

Motor31 · 02-02-2011, 11:12 AM

To get a socket to fit the stem locking nuts I went and bought one of the inexpensive deep socket sets. Then I took the one that fit the nut and "modified" it to fit inside the small hole where the stem is placed. I used a grinder to turn down the socket diameter. Since the nut uses little torque I wasn't worried about breaking the socket.