Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Cutting / Groving / Siping R-4 for snow

[dwellonrooftop]

Looks Great:thumbsup: Just Wandering Since I Have R4s If Grooving Will Work Better For Lawn???? Wish I Bought Turfs.

 

[oldtoyboyd]

I wonder if grooving the R4 tires would give any help in wet to muddy conditions with ground engaging implements. I got R4 tires because I will be using it for grass cutting. I am going to load my rear tires. I was disappointed this morning trying to pull a disc when I hit some wet spots.

 

[lilranch2001]

where do you get the Ideal Heated Knife?

 

[k0ua]

where do you get the Ideal Heated Knife?

This is where I got mine:

Ideal Heated Knives 125

James K0UA

 

[Carl Bert]

where do you get the Ideal Heated Knife?

I got mine on Ebay. Can't recall what I paid, but it came with two heads.

 

[First one]

Have any of you found that by doing this to your tires you tear them up when your spin on rocks or getting chewed up using chains ? I could see that it would give you more traction , but would also give you another edge to get ripped up on if you spin on something sharp. I was just wondering ?

 

[k0ua]

I used them in the snow today, and they worked well..It was not a really good workout but I was nose down on a very steep snow/icy hill the wife's 2006 Impala was stuck on this hill, just would not go up it. She hit the hill too slow and with traction control on, would not go up it. I got in the car and carefully backed it down all the way, and part of the way up the other hill as far as I could go. (stuck between 2 hills) gave it the gas the traction control cut in, and I ran out of momentum. I was done with that idea, as the back down was a very harrowing experience trying to not lose the car in the bottom of the ravine (20 ft down). It wanted to slide off and not roll the wheels just slide down the hill. Very difficult to keep it straight not go to fast, keep the wheels rolling etc. I lost my 2000 Silverado a few years ago doing just that , got going too fast and the rear end swung around went halfway down the ravine on the "good side". I was lucky to get out unhurt, truck was unhurt, and paid $300 for the wrecker to pull it out with a double snatch block hookup from about 300 foot away. Anyway I backdrug the snow and ice from in front of the car as close as I could get to it, and shoveled the rest out from in front of the wheels, and brought some frozen road base gravel from my pile to spread in the road in front of the car and under the tires. The tractor never spun a bit on this steep hill backing up and dragging the snow uphill. I then drove the car up hill on the spread gravel under its own power. Would the tractor been this good without the grooving? Hard to say, I did not have an identical tractor/tire setup to test. I had some trouble spinning last year with the ungrooved R4 tires in a neighors driveway trying to drag out the snow, that was not as steep as this road. I had to abandon the idea of dragging out the snow, and we did it with shovels. I noticed the snow filling in the grooves just like everyone says. So this is not a super good test, but the tires did well today. Far better than a 2006 Impala with traction control.

James K0UA

 

[Carl Bert]

Have any of you found that by doing this to your tires you tear them up when your spin on rocks or getting chewed up using chains ? I could see that it would give you more traction , but would also give you another edge to get ripped up on if you spin on something sharp. I was just wondering ?

Exactly what I've been worried about. I bought the tool to do it about a year ago, but still haven't used it. I guess we would have heard something by now if it did lead to premature wear.

 

[jimgerken]

Any removal of rubber will lead to reduced lifespan. But its a tradeoff. If they are too hard to work, you need to improve them. They may fail in other ways before the tread is gone anyway.
I have cut and siped and chopped out entire knobs off ATV tires for years. It greatly improves traction to open them up. Then they wear out faster too. But I'd rather get traction than not. At the current price of ATV tires. Tractor tires are expensive though. You decide.

 

[gladehound]

It has been 14 months and 100 hours since I grooved my tires. I push the tires hard and have even spun them in 3" gravel. So far the tires have held together just fine.

As I mentioned before, you'll want to heat the tires if you want the knife to go through them easily. I used a multi-fuel 100,000+ BTU torpedo heater and even with filled rears in the middle of January it was like a hot knife through butter. Going by feel the outsides of my tires were probably around 120-130 degrees F.