Newell Gurus

Hey guys

I have an 84 as many of you know. Being one of the Guru's in the middle of a career with kids at home we are just now taking it out for the first time this summer. Yes you read that correctly. You retired guys kill me!  

Anyways I am looking for tire pressure recommendations from you all. I don't have a tag on this coach and the tires are Goodyear 11R24.5. I think they are aired a little too much based on my memory, but i had it in getting a tire with a bad valve fixed and the guys aired them all up. The front are at about 122 and the 4 in the rear are all about 100. A couple of years ago Clarke and I had them at 105 in the front and 90 in the back because he also thought they road a little stiff. I was going to set them back to this but before I did I thought I would see what recommendations you all might have for me. We will be driving 2,000 miles I imagine from our place to Yellowstone and back. 

Don't ask me the weight of the coach. I can't recall what it was the last time I weighed it. Seems to me ideas packed and probably 2,000 lbs short of the maximum possibly. 

Thanks for your help!

If this works I have attached a pic of the tag from the coach showing max weight and recommended air. 

Todd,

Here's the placard from our '87. However it is a tag coach, but this is one area I'd use the tire mfg recommendation vs Newells. That's just me though.

Sadly knowing the weights on the tires is the only way to know the required tire pressure. If I were in your situation I would inflate all of them to the max pressure shown on the tires. I would depart on my trip and stop at the first available truck scale aND get my axle weights. I would use the tire pressure chart for your tires and inflate accordingly. You need to increase the pressures somewhat to account for uneven loading side to side. Other owners of your vintage may have some insight on that figure, I'm clueless.

Todd, make sure that you check the load range of the tires. My tires are Bridgestone 11R24.5 so based on the Tire Load Tables from Bridgestone, a Single tire that is load range G has a maximum inflation of 105 psi (6610 lbs load per tire or 13220 per axle) and a dual load range G has a maximum inflation of 105 psi at 6005 lbs load per tire or 24020 per drive axle. If they are load range H, the max inflation increases to 120 psi and the loads go up to 7160 per single tire and 6610 per tire in dually configuration. At the sticker recommended 95 psi, your front tires would carry 6095 lbs per tire and the rear axle would would support 5675 lbs for each of the four tires. Unless your axles are overloaded, the 95 psi would not give you much wiggle room (only a few hundred pounds) for side to side imbalance on the front axle fully loaded but would give you almost 2000 pounds excess capacity on the drive axle. Unless you are severely overloaded on the rear, I would think that the 95 psi rear pressure is reasonable. On the front, unless I was absolutely certain of the actual axle weight, I would want to carry 100-105 up there.

Take a look at http://www.goodyeartrucktires.com/pdf/re...lation.pdf scroll to page 7 of the file, listed on the page 46 for inflation tables for the Goodyear 11R24.5.

OK so I found my tires in the guide that you sent over in the guide.  I had the coach weighed last year when it was about where it is now with fuel, water etc..

steer axle was 11,940 or 5,970 per tire
drive axle was 21,300 or 5,325 per tire

The chart said that at 6,095 the tire should measure 95 PSI.  The drive should 90 at 5,510.  So what do you think about the front at 100 and the rears at 90 or maybe 95 just to be safe.

Now this coach is stored indoors.  There is no sunlight on the tires but the ambient temperature was probably 90 in the building.  do I need to take that into effect or do I ignore the ambient temperature so long as the tires are not getting blasted by any sun?

If the coach had not been driven, you have good 'cold' pressures. Just don't set tire pressure after you have been driving as the pressure will increase substantially.

I would think that, based on the weights above, 100 psi in the fronts and 95 in the rears would be reasonable assuming that is the way you load it to travel.

I agree with Michael.

Todd: you have done a great job of sorting this out. I can think of only one additional consideration; you might at some point try 105 on the steers. Sometimes this stiffens them a bit for better steering action, I found this to true on my 77 coach which only needed 85psi on the steers for carrying the weight but the steering was squishy.