Maintaining Duallie Tire Pressure - RV-Dreams Community Forum

RRman · RV-Dreams Community Member

Maintaining Duallie Tire Pressure

mikeway · RV-Dreams Family Member

On 3 different motor homes, I have had no problems with extensions leaking. Just make sure they aren't made in China. "Professional" brands should give no issues. Walmart or Kmart may not be the best place to purchase something potentially as important as inflation accessories. A collection of "inflation tips" bought at Home Depot were nothing but trouble.

Mike

-- Edited by mikeway at 12:02, 2007-08-25

RVDude · RV-Dreams Family Member

First, I'll say I am not a fan of valve stem hose extenders - either the airless or the pressured type. My thought is that the more connections on a valve stem the more chances for leaks or vibration loosening. (As an aside this is precisely my reason for disliking the PressurePro setup as it also creates an additional pressurized failure point.) Though, if I really had to, I would opt for the airless extension setup for obvious reasons. That said, lots and lots of folks are running extenders.

Here's something to try.
I used very short straight rubber valve stems on the inner wheels on my Ford dually. Then after much searching, I found what is called a "straight on" dually air chuck and even an air gauge which had this straight chuck on it. It looks like this. Note how one tip is straight and the other tip has the standard angle.

I was able to poke this straight tool through the outer wheel and make a clean connection with that inner wheel stubby valve stem and never had a problem. I also made sure the inner and outer wheels were always mounted so that the valve stems were 180 degrees apart making it a snap to figure out which hole to use for the inner - directly opposite the visible outer wheel stem.

Note that the commonly available dually chuck has both tip positions at an angle like this. This style would be very hard to mate up with the stubby inner vlave stems.

Just a simple idea.

-- Edited by RVDude at 12:10, 2007-08-25

SoCalToolGuy · RV-Dreams Family Member

Check this out. My brother in law has this on his motorhome.

http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~tire-man/default.html

Postalpair · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have a Ford F-550. When we had new tires put on about 6 months ago,
we asked what was best for maintaining the pressure on the inside duallie.....we have tried valve extenders both airless and pressured. The Tech at the tire dealer put long brass valves designed for semi's on the inner wheel and bent them slightly to line up with the holes on the outer wheel. Then a solid extender was added to that and all valves are easily accessible from outside the outer wheel.

RRman · RV-Dreams Community Member

Great advice so far, but still uncertain which way to go. Obviously as a minimum I need my tires balanced and setup in one of these ways. I just need to decide what to have the tire guys do, or at least attempt...
Tireman solution looks robust, but I wonder if I could do or a vendor would take the time to without costing more than tires and wheels.
Any other recommendations or endorsements are appreciated!

RVDude · RV-Dreams Family Member

Stop at a commercial tire place and see if they'll make something like PostalPair had made. It is the same solution as the link in SoCalToolGuy but I bet costs a lot less. My 22.5's have those same bent valve stems so they must be readily available. Otherwise, go super simple with the solution I mentioned before... Good luck, duallys are really not that hard to deal with...

SKOOBDO · RV-Dreams Family Member

I gave up on trying to find some good valve extenders. Some are just cheap and the others scratch up your chrome wheels. So, I just go to truck stops or the Ford dealer to get air in them. They hold air really good, so I only adjust the air when I plan to stay put for a while and not tow. Otherwise, I keep them basically maxed out when towing.