Resent suspension upgrade complete, but TJ ride has room for improvement. Replaced suspension with Rancho RS5000X stocks and OME Medium/Heavy springs. No hard top. No upgraded bumpers....yet. 4.0L. How do you manage your air pressure?
1) I see many posts mentioning 22-26 psi....is that for off road and on road use?
2) What do you use for deflating? Is it important to have a quality tool to get close to exact tire pressure in each tire
3) What do you use to inflate? I have seen onboard tanks, plug and play compressors and air tanks.
Thanks,
Keith
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26-28 psi is more for 33" size tires and that high of a pressure only for street use. Offroading, the tire pressure is much lower, usually 13 psi or under. Generally speaking, the bigger the tire the less air pressure required and visa-versa. If you're not under 15 psi for offroading you're not airing down enough.
For deflating, I have been using this one for many years and like it because it's FAST!!!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PADT5PS/?tag=wranglerorg-20 But you have to manage tire pressure one tire at a time.
I'm now transitioning to this one as soon as I get the time to get it better calibrated. I recently used it the first time but it lowered my tire pressure lower than what I thought I had set it for though I was kind of rushed during my first calibration attempt.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JJND26I/?tag=wranglerorg-20 Its benefit is convenience, you screw them onto all four tires at once and it does its job while you go do something else.
Compressor-wise, this is a critical device... choose the wrong one and you'll be there 45 minutes to an hour refilling your tires after you're done offroading. The little compressors that plug into your cigarette lighters are the worst at being too slow to refill our big Jeep-size tires. What to look for in a compressor for our big Jeep tires? Air volume, as in CFM... cubic feet per minute, not PSI which is only how much pressure it can pump to. A tiny road bike hand-pumped compressor can fill a road bike tire to 120 psi which I used to do, and they don't take long to do it but road bike tires are small/tiny so they don't take a lot of air to refill them.. But even though it can refill a small bike tire to 120 psi, it'd take hours to refill a big tire to 25 psi.
What you want is a compressor that can put out at least 2 CFM or more so you don't waste your time refilling tires. I installed a belt-driven compressor into my previous Jeep and it put out something like 7 CFI and it could refill all four of my 35" tires from 8 psi to 25 psi in less than a minute per tire. That Jeep was stolen so I now use a 10 lb. CO2 tank to refill my tires and it puts out almost as many CFM, it takes maybe 5 minutes to refill all four of my tires. My CO2 tank probably puts out 6 CFM.
I just can't emphasize enough to avoid the little compressors selling for $19.99, $29.99, etc.. Even though their packaging screams 120 psi, 200 psi, etc., that is just PSI and they don't put out enough VOLUME (CFI) to refill our Jeep tires in any time that is not an excruciatingly long time.
ARB makes great compressors and so does Viair, just buy the compressor with the highest CFM rating you can afford. And if it plugs into the cigarette lighter it won't put out much air because a cigarette lighter can't put out enough amperes for a decent-size compressor. Either go with one with battery clamps, or put together your on CO2 tank which you can do for under $200. If you're interested I can tell you the basics of what's needed to put together a CO2 tank system at 1/3 the cost of what they sell for already to use.
