Grooving / Cutting R-3 Turf Tires For Better Snow Traction

[LFEngineering]

About 2 weeks ago I got stuck in my driveway in 3/4" of snow. That's right, less then 1" stopped my '75 Cub lo-boy in her tracks. As an engineering tech and fab shop owner I have an uncontrollable urge to tweak / modify everything so it didn't take long before I was looking for ways to improve traction. I was leaning towards making wheel spacers & buying chains until I found the popular "Cutting / Groving / Siping R-4 for snow" thread here on TBN. This got me thinking, R-4, R-3 doesn't matter they're both suffering from the same problem when it comes to snow.

Based on the information found on the R-4 grooving thread I decided I'd pick up a groover & modify the center lugs on my R3's.

One of the hardest parts of this entire experiment was trying to find an objective way to measure the results. To do this I decided to cut only one tire, that way I could drive on any surface and see which tire slipped first. If the un-grooved tire repeatedly slipped before then the grooved tire then grooving helps. If it's 50/50 then it was a waste of time. Remember I'm not trying to beat chains, or studs I just want an improvement.

I started by laying out each lug with a cross hatch pattern. After the first few I decided to just free hand the rest. All in all it took about an hour to cut one tire start to finish. The groover handled it well, I only used 1 blade and it didn't seem to cut any different from the first to last cut.

Results:

After a trip out to the yard the results were in, it worked. To what degree I can't say yet, but 20 for 20 attempts up the snow covered hill the non-grooved tire broke free first. Unfortunately it was too dark to take video, but I will do some filming this afternoon.

 

[mikehaugen]

Good deal! Which groover did you end up buying?

 

[LFEngineering]

Ideal 250w with #4 round blades.

If you notice in the after testing picture the snow/ice is coming in contact with some more then just the center 3 rows. Though I'm pleased with the results from the initial testing however I think grooving 5 rows of lugs instead of just the center 3 will help even more.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Reducing the tire pressure so that all the lugs will contact will help even more than siping and with the siping on all the lugs and reduced pressures you should have a good snow tire.

 

[arrow]

That old adage of "snow grips snow" rings true again. The great, true all around tractor tire hasn't been invented yet but I wouldn't think it would be hard to come up with. All a designer would have to come up with is a tread pattern that was good in snow and mud, you could drive on the grass with, you could plow a field with and you could go in the forest and skid logs with. Probably something between a turf and R1. I wonder what that would look like?…. and no, an industrial is not it.

 

[LFEngineering]

There wasn't a ton of snow, but enough to be slippery. As you can see in the video the left tire slips as I start up the hill, applying the left brake transfers power to the grooved tire and I'm able to make it up the hill.

Here's the video: IH Cub Lo-Boy 185 - Grooved R-3 Tractot Tire - Snow Test - YouTube

I also added 2 more rows of grooving as the outer lugs also make contact with the ground.

 

[mikehaugen]

Okay, you've inspired me... now I gotta do it. Thank you.

 

[savageactor7]

Yikes! That's way to radical of a solution for me...even though I like the look.

 

[LFEngineering]

It was an easy decision to make when compared to the other options. Wheel spacers & chains would have totaled around $175ish and they'd beat on my driveway. New tires are a pain to find, seeing as IH supplied the Lo-Boys with with 13.1-16 tires which seem to ONLY come in turf's. I considered trying some truck tires in 38x13R16's however no-one could actually tell me if they would mount on my rims. I also looked at picking up different rims / tires, but all those options were 300-500 dollar range.

My logic; Spend $70.00 for a tire groover and cut the now 39 year old tires. Even if my tire cutting increased wear by 50% I could still expect to see another 15-20 years out of them. Worst case, I waste 4 hours of my time and ruin an old set of tires.

Again I'm happy with the results so far, I'm going to groove the left side tire this weekend and really see what she can do. I don't currently use the tractor for snow removal, although if the traction is improved enough I would love to build a plow for next year.

 

[toomanymachines]

I have had a groover for years, and it works well, but it sure takes a long time to get things done. How many hours do you have into the grooving all together.