Farmall Super-A lift capacity?

[Soundguy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( my sugestion was 2000lb compact 1200lb lift in the specs. of anew tractor in this cover your a** world the maufacter must be confident in the safty issue )</font>

My NH 1920 lift easilly lifts over 2/3rds of the tractor weight.. and it will snatch the front right off the ground without blinking if you hitch to a load that doesn't give.

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( thanks to Mr massy for that invention-(3pt ht). )</font>

That would be Harry ferguson.. and was developed before he partnered with Ford in '39.. and well before he partnered with massey.. etc.

At any rate.. the point is moot.. I got to drive around on a nice minty super a at the Fl Flywheelers show. After seeing how its final drives, and axles looked.. tranny casting.. etc... If you want to 1000+ pounds up on there.. go ahead..
If it were my machine.. I wouldn't want to.. nor would I want to drive it that way... Machine is too narrow.. dishing the wheels would help. Front weight would help.. but then I would worrk about the frame structure... Quite a lot of front weight would be needed to offset a rear bale.

Soundguy

 

[slowrev]

If you lift something too heavy on the rear of a tractor the front will come up, in a stationary position this is not usually a big deal. However when moving along and the load on the rear hits the ground with the front end already light this is an issue as the rear wheel torque will try to flip you over backways VERY quickly. Very scary being near vertical on a tractor in about one second or less. Been there done that, was lucky.... Remember the 3 point floats upwards so it is not any help to hold the front down....

 

[gone]

( Furguson) exactly right my fingers don't do what my mind says,fist to last David brown,Ford,Standard motor co.and last but not least Massey harris. ( the three pt. ht. floats won't keep front down or from going over) yes and no. it does float but to a limit,end of up stroke, when a load on hitch hits the ground the tractor stops lifting front. in order to go over the implement or 3pt hitch would have to break. with the exception of somone chaining to 3 pt to pull somthing the 3pt ht. was desiend to stop rear flip with an implement on , any how See Ya! I'm gone! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Soundguy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( when a load on hitch hits the ground the tractor stops lifting front. in order to go over the implement or 3pt hitch would have to break )</font>

On a modern tractor with 3pt at the time of purchase, the 3pt is engineered with the tractor specs.

On a tractor that is being retrofit with 3pt, the toplink connection point becomes an issue. The toplink is what would ultimately stop the tractor from flipping.

While I would trust the engineering team at a tractor manufacturer to know what they are doing when designing the 3pt geometry and mounting locations for the toplink connection.. I wouldn't want 'buba's welding' to fab me a bracket for the toplink ( as part of a 3pt hitch conversion kit ) knowing that that was the piece that keeps my tractor from flipping over and killing me.
Kind of the same feeling for non-certified rops... You never know where the limit is..

Soundguy

 

[NCFERGY]

Pat: My old Super A did well to pick up a 5 foot bush hog with the three point hitch. Dad bought it new in 53 and we kept it untill a couple of years ago. The S/A, 100, 130, 140 are great cultivator tractors, but not for any heavy work. I remember once I tried to put the 6 foot disc behind it when our ford 640 was broke. It was all it could do to clear the ground when you tried to pick it up. Also trickey to drive when the front end was skipping off the ground.

 

[g42guy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The one I'm interested in is a 1951, hydraulic unit behind the engine. If I put a 3PH conversion on it and a carry-all with a spear, can I lift 1000lb round bales with it?
)</font>

uuhhh... no.

 

[Alfonzo]

I have a Farmall Super A with a recently rebuilt engine and hydraulics. I just moved from a farm though and am going to sell it since my hilly new property makes it a danger to mow with.

I'm going to miss it. It's a nice tractor.

Anyway, we have horses, and we had round bales at the farm. My experience with round bales is that two bales coming consecutively from the same baler, may in actuality be very different. So you won't know what you are getting into when you hook up to a given bale.

I've tried this little stunt. The super A hydraulics didn't seem to have much difficulty picking up a bale that had run away from the baler and down a hill. It was an awful lot of weight on the tractor though, and I sensed I wasn't doing the machine a lot of good abusing it in this fashion.

Then I got a brief taste of instant death.

With that much weight on the back, you are essentially carrying the round bale on your two rear wheels. With that much weight ANY difference in traction or the level of the ground you're on is going to cause the differential to slip completely.

What happened is one wheel stopped turning, and the other wheel suddenly got all the power. The tractor suddenly torqued up and to the right, and would have surely gone over had the front end not hit a tree.

This happened suddenly and without warning. I had no time to put in the clutch or anything, and I was going slow and careful because I knew I was doing something stupid.

The ground was level and regular.

The Super A is a nice machine. It is simply not made to handle such a task. Like many overengineered machines, it will do a lot more than it was designed for, but using it in such a fashion is dangerous and not very bright.

 

[upgw]

Thanks for the info. It's actually a 1957 Farmall 130. I'm guessing that's the same size/weight as a Super-A. In either case, I'll stick to dragging a harrow and/or bale cart, I won't attempt to life them with the tractor.

- Patrick