How much ballast

[TheMan419]

My rears are not loaded. I still need to do light work when the ground is soft. I have a 600 lb tiller. When I put that on my little 24 hp tractor becomes a whole different machine. I can max lift my loader without feeling any thought of the rear wheels coming off the ground. That is about 50% of my 3 point lift capacity.

Err on the side of more is better until the front wheels start leaving the ground when the bucket is empty.

A ballast box is good for tight working conditions. The nice thing is you can keep adding sand to it or removing until you find the sweet spot for your set up.

I highly recommend getting one of the various quick hitches available. Makes changing out implements sooooo much easier.

 

[gladehound]

I have a 45hp tractor with 1,000 pounds of fill in the rears. It's not enough for any serious loader work. For normal loader work I have 1500 pounds of ballast on the rear wheels (Me, cage, tire fill) and 900 pounds of counter weight (300 on draw bar, 600 on 3 point). The reason I have 300 on the draw bar is because that's there all the time even when I have something light on the 3pt. It makes a difference. And if I'm lifting heavy on the front (~2,000+) I've gone as high as 2,000 on the 3pt. Remember, only weight on the 3pt unloads your front axle during a lift. BTW, my manual indicates I should have 1300 pounds on the 3pt for loader work but says nothing about filling the tires.

 

[SmallChange]

I think we are getting the leverage issue wrong. Yes, if you are worried about the front wheels coming off the ground, it's important how far the ballast is from the rear axle of the tractor. That's because in that scenario the rear axle is the pivot of the lever.

But that's not the issue when you are talking about heavy FEL loading, keeping the rears on the ground and keeping force on them. In that case, the leverage that matters depends on how far back the ballast is measuring from the FRONT axles. The fronts become the pivot in this issue. So moving the ballast back by a foot, say, is only going to increase the leverage by several percent.