,
“Maybe we should air down,” said Jeff. We then realized none of us had an air pressure gauge! Project Tundra had been driving around with 40 PSI in its Nitto Ridge Grappler tires for fuel economy and load capacity when towing and handling. This was not too good for off-roading at all.
So we took a guess at how much air to take out. I started at 20 seconds of pushing the valve stem down, hahaha what a bunch of newbs. At this time, I softened Project Tundra’s King shocks compression damping by 6 clicks in the rear and 4 in the front to help absorb bumps and help the truck find traction.
These changes made a pretty big difference, but the Tundra was still not doing as well as most other vehicles out in the desert.
We hooked it up and found that we had only bled out about 5 PSI out of our tires! Using the little gauge thing, we both aired down to 20 PSI. Later we found out that we could probably safely go as low as 15 PSI before worrying about debeading a tire.
Wow! The lower pressure made a huge difference in traction in everything from sand to gravel and dirt. Our ride over harsh bumps was suddenly a lot better. We instantly could now keep up with most of the other vehicles and felt really stupid we had not initially thought about our tire pressures. It’s amazing what tire pressure does in rough terrain. Our previous off-roading experience was just graded dirt roads to do rally support, going on shooting trips and getting to trailheads. Oh well, we also learned to listen to people who know what they are doing.
On Project Tundra we were now in love with our Nitto Ridge Grapplers and they were living up to their namesake at last. Remember kids, air down!
