I have had both and filling was better for me than handling the weights. I have also seen weight boxes get filled with sand and concrete to add weight ballast behind the rear axle.
Traction wheel weights or fill the tires?
- Thread starter Elklakedoug
- Start date
North Country
Gold Member
How do you mount the weighted wheel assembly? From the picture, it looks like your wheel weight obscures the lug nuts.
GPintheMitten
Elite Member
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North Country said:
I have a hex axle housing and matching hex hub of sorts that the wheel bolts to. The wheel and hex hub slip onto the hex axle and fastened with a pin.
I forgot about that until you brought it up. I don't know how common my setup is. But youre right, my method wouldn't work without it.
I can take pictures tomorrow.
jenkinsph
Super Star Member
I prefer the wheel weights as long as you can add enough to fit your needs. it is easier for me to handle removing individual wheel weights than handling a fully loaded rear wheel. I also feel a flat is alot less mess without rimguard or Calcium Chloride all over everything. Windshield washer fluid can be a good alternative too but not as heavy as the other two.
JD3520Turbo
Silver Member
To me it comes down to cost. JD wants a bunch for their wheel weights. I put wiper washer fluid in my 3520 and it held it down really good. I put 45 gallons in each side. That was as much as I could get in them. I was getting 8lbs of weight for every $1.25 instead of $2.00/lb with cast weights, and I got more weight on there.
For what we are doing, fluid does not adversly affect most situations. In row crop farming, fluid is not the optimum setup. The reason is because of compaction. Radial farm tires are designed to flex under load and give you a larger footprint. The bigger the footprint, the less weight/square inch is pushing on the soil.
Fluid doesn't compress at the same rate as air, so if you put fluid in a radial farm tire, you are reducing greatly its ability to flex when going over the field, thus creating more compaction in the field and reducing yield. Wheel weights offer a much better alternative in this situation.
In our case here, that really doesn't apply, unless you are not wanting to put undo stress on your lawn or something like that. If that is an issue, then I would not go with fluid. I would use a ballast box, because it is the easiest thing to remove. Wheel weights would be somewhere in the middle.
If wheel weights were a little less spendy, I would have them, because they are clean, out of the way, and reasonably easy to get on and off.
I can't see where they would cause any stress on bearings or any of that because they are putting their weight on the tire, not the axle. A Ballast box would put weight on the axle, but it should handle that.
Seems to me that any of these 3 choices will work. The issue is to find the one that best fits your needs and check book.
For what we are doing, fluid does not adversly affect most situations. In row crop farming, fluid is not the optimum setup. The reason is because of compaction. Radial farm tires are designed to flex under load and give you a larger footprint. The bigger the footprint, the less weight/square inch is pushing on the soil.
Fluid doesn't compress at the same rate as air, so if you put fluid in a radial farm tire, you are reducing greatly its ability to flex when going over the field, thus creating more compaction in the field and reducing yield. Wheel weights offer a much better alternative in this situation.
In our case here, that really doesn't apply, unless you are not wanting to put undo stress on your lawn or something like that. If that is an issue, then I would not go with fluid. I would use a ballast box, because it is the easiest thing to remove. Wheel weights would be somewhere in the middle.
If wheel weights were a little less spendy, I would have them, because they are clean, out of the way, and reasonably easy to get on and off.
I can't see where they would cause any stress on bearings or any of that because they are putting their weight on the tire, not the axle. A Ballast box would put weight on the axle, but it should handle that.
Seems to me that any of these 3 choices will work. The issue is to find the one that best fits your needs and check book.
Wes Obie
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I stayed away from both Wheel weights and filling tires. I did put a quality set of chains on for winter which added 20#'s for each tire then I welded up a simple tray to hold old full size car batteries that I can pickup for rear weight with the 3 point hitch summer or winter for traction that adds of 140 #'s cantilevered behind the rear axle.
mroberts5
Bronze Member
How about both? My new (to me) Ford 1920 came with wheel weights, but I still feel I need more ballast for traction (I need to do a bit of skidding logs, so weight on the 3pt would be tough). Any reason I couldn't load my tires with the weights on as well? Do you think I should cut back how much I add or go the full recommended amount?
Zebrafive
Super Member
I have both on my JD6415 and I would like at least one more set.
My JD 2030 had loaded tires and weights. I moved the weights to the 6415, then had flat and lost all the liquid fill. They service guy said they sent the wrong truck and could not refill the liquid. They wanted another service call ($75) plus the cost of filling, so only one is filled. They said I should have told them I had filled tires.
I have considered buying ten weights from EA since then freight would be free.
My JD 2030 had loaded tires and weights. I moved the weights to the 6415, then had flat and lost all the liquid fill. They service guy said they sent the wrong truck and could not refill the liquid. They wanted another service call ($75) plus the cost of filling, so only one is filled. They said I should have told them I had filled tires.
I have considered buying ten weights from EA since then freight would be free.