Tractor tires

[Anonymous Poster]

John and all,

I ended up buying 2 link from tirechains.com.

Ended up having to shorten the chains by taking off two cross chains. They sent me the next largest size [apparently out of stock in the correct size], but did not tell me this until I called them when the chains did not fit.

They now fit well and work well.

Bill

 

[djradz]

I think you mostly are suffering from too little weight in the front when you take the FEL off. You might want to put some tubes in those front tires and get them filled with Rim Guard. I don't have an FEL, but without the added weights I put on, I had little traction up front also.

 

[hazmat]

DJ,

Well sunday I spent some time hauling firewood from the back woods to my deck. I was using the FEL in wheelbarrow mode/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif. Still had the lack of steering problem on the slippery snow/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif. Actually I was having problems going straight up hill too. The snow was extra slick as it was somewhat melting vs. when it is nice & cold (seems to offer more traction then).

In any case, I'm rigging my new front blade up, I'll see if that is any better. Mostly I plow in straight lines, just need to steer to reposition. Might have to get chains, but hoping not to have to deal with that. Plus I think the wife might remember me telling her that with 4WD chains weren't necessary. When she makes me eat my words, they aren't tasty.

My tires are so small, I don't know if adding rim guard would add much weight.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

With little experience but lots of lawn & extreme slope, the
turf tires have been fine. O.K. too in 6 " snow fall uphill, with
FEL and rear blade, so far so good. Will be interesting to test
in heavy wet snow up or down hill....

 

[John_Mc]

<font color=blue>My tires are so small, I don't know if adding rim guard would add much weight. </font color=blue>

Hazmat - I'd be more inclined to go with the suitcase weights on the front anyway. I haven't seen a definitive answer yet, but several people, and some manufacturers recommend against filling front tires. I think this is because the unfilled tires provide more shock absorbtion or "cushion" for the front drivetrain/suspension (?? I may be all wet on this.) The front blade may help -- when it's raised -- but when on the ground, it's probably adding little, if anything, to your front traction.

On the other hand, if your loader filled with firewood didn't do the trick, probably not much will. Best bet if the problem persists might be chains on your front tires (a LOT cheaper and easier to install than chains for your larger rears). If you really want extra steering traction (rather than just pulling traction) look for something with good side-to-side traction, like DUOgrip chains, or similar

John Mc

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I've got R4's on a JD4700. Have used R-1's on smaller JD's without traction problems winter and summer. As my fields got progressively more "finished" (better grass, etc), I went with the R4's. My land is 1/2 sloped, 1/2 flat. Now I experience sliding sideways while mowing-the heavy mower pulls the back end loose. And this winter, I'm having a bad time trying to drive along a side hill -- the front wheels slide down. They also push straight on turns. The damage I'm doing to the turf I can only guess whether it will look bad next summer. At this point I can hardly believe the R1's would rip up the ground any worse, if you average the seasons. The tread pattern of the R4's are the problem - they are built for flat ground. Neither the fronts or rears have tread edges good for lateral stability, and the treads appear to act as rails for sliding sideways.
I have checked Goodyear's website. Like any basic type of tire, there are good designs and better designs, depending on what you want. There's a couple R1's with additional tread contact to the ground (more like R4's) and couple of R4's with more edges. Would love to swap out tires like on the F150, but at $450-550 apiece plus lots of labor costs, experimentation is a little painful. And according to the dealer, radials would help a lot, whereas every tractor I've bought is shod with bias.
Would be nice to have more options out of the factory when buying the tractor.
jim

 

[chim]

Jim, I'm beginning to believe the differences in individual pieces of land make a big difference in tire performance. Reports here by some of the other posters aren't consistent with my experiences. There's no reason not to believe what these intelligent people are saying, so it looks like the soil/grass/mud/whatever is making the difference. My Mom-in-law's lawn, for example, has one place that seems like the grass has really short roots or something that causes the grass to get scuffed up if I make a turn or hit the reverse pedal too quickly, regardless of which tractor I'm on.

I have a Ford 1210HST with R1's and a Kubota B7500HST with R4's. The grass doesn't care which tractor runs over it. Right after getting the Kubota, I ran around a grassy hill at my place intentionally making turns just to see what damage would be inflicted. In 2WD, no problems. In 4WD both the R1's and R4's rip things up a bit.

There is a place where I need to back uphill to get lined up after making a turn. With the Ford, I either have to pick the deck slightly, use 4WD or diff lock. In 2WD, the tires spin. With the Kubota, I just hit reverse in 2WD and go. The R1's may be a little better in the mud here. We only had one snowfall since I got the Kubota - an 8-incher, and it didn't have any trouble handling a rear blade (which is a foot wider than the one on the Ford).

At another place I mow, there's a spot I mow "sidehill" unless there's dew on the grass. If that's the case, I back down and drive up. Takes a lot longer, but I don't trust either tractor running across that hill with wet grass. When it's dry, the Ford's rear wheels always break loose, and I kinda "crab" my way across the hill. The Kubota tracks straight across, without the rear trying to slip downhill. The Kubota is even pulling a heavier RFM...............chim

 

[EdK]

I am in agreement with your observations and experiences. I too wanted more choices in tires when buying my tractor but only OEM R1/R4/Turfs were available. I'm itching to try something like the Michelin XM27 tires that were much talked about a year back on this board. It seems as they were the best of R4 & R1 rolled into one tire - radial too. I do worry about traction though. Perhaps an R4 (or preferably XM27) and add chains when the going gets tough makes the best compromise. I occasionally hear speak of multiple sets on rims but I am running loaded 16.9x30 and changing these doesn’t seem like much fun at all.