Ballast Tractor Wheel Weights

[sdkubota]

I thought I better add my concrete rear weight:

[thunderheart]

minimal time.. and yes.. i cast my own weights in various sizes and applications.. rear, hanger, wafer, dead ballast..e tc. wheel weights are no different.. and you can pour in place using the tire rim and visquine, some carriage botls and nuts and small rebar or heavy brace fence wire..

lay rim down. lay plastic down put carriage botls in/thur plasic and nut in place with heads sticking up into cement area.. use whatever you need to shape the plastif to make a form you want.. then pour.

I've seen guys make weights with 5g buckets that stick our the side of their tractor wheels.

it's not hard.. and is so cheap it's funny...

You talked me into it Soundguy. But as my rear wheels are water ballasted I think I'll skip wheel wieghts for now and make some bumper weights like yours. The original post was more out of curiosity than immediate need. But I may require some upfront weight pretty soon.

I have never liked it when a tractor bucked. When I was a youngster I had the frontend of our 4020 and 3020 off the ground a few times and it was pretty intimidating. Especially considering I needed a 2 liter Coke crate to climb up on the darn things. Those tractors were big, powerful, scary, and frankly dangerous beasts when you're 11 or 12 years old.

I have a 2-14 bottom plow that is pretty heavy. Maybe I won't need any more ballast but if I do I will likely try your method. How much did each of those disks end up weighing? Also what kind or material did you use for the pour. Plain old Quikcrete? I would think the denser and harder the material the better.

I thought I better add my concrete rear weight:

DOOD! That thing looks heavy. Did you add it to give more traction when using your FEL or is it for some other front mounted attachment?

Thanks for the input guys,

Dallas

[Soundguy]

each weight took an 80# bag, plug it has some fence brace wire rolled in it with a long 1/2" carriage bolt.. that is joined to the wire loops too.

that ford 4600 has a 6' servis(rhino) mower on back and is fine normally.. but when laoding on my deckover flatbed, the front end sometimes bounced and pointed at the sky! i made a decent bumper for it and started casting the weights using a medium deep cattle feed tub as the mould. i used a varietey of release agents.. all worked...

i made a few tub rear weights out of old deep cattle protien feed tubs too. works good, and very cheap...

[sdkubota]

DOOD! That thing looks heavy. Did you add it to give more traction when using your FEL or is it for some other front mounted attachment?

Thanks for the input guys,

Dallas

Yep, just when loadering dirt. It weighs 1,000 lbs and does squat the tractor a little when carrying it. It also makes a world of difference when cutting into hard clay with the loader. The traction I get with that weight is incredible and you really wonder if it is the same hp tractor. I can boil dirt out of the sides of the FEL. I try to be a little more cautious with it on to make sure I am not over stressing the loader or drive train. Best $50 investment I have made so far!

[sixdogs]

Soundguy--those are beautiful weights and far in excess of the best I have seen. I'm willing to back up and say that weights cast of cement of that quality have a lot going for them. What I have seen cast around here doesn't hold a candle to Soundguy's weights. I'm now tempeted to try it.

[sdkubota]

Soundguy--those are beautiful weights and far in excess of the best I have seen. I'm willing to back up and say that weights cast of cement of that quality have a lot going for them. What I have seen cast around here doesn't hold a candle to Soundguy's weights. I'm now tempeted to try it.

Cast iron has roughly 3 times the weight of concrete given the same volume (450 lbs/cf vs 150 lbs/cf). The advantage of cast iron is smaller footprint but it comes at a pretty large price.

[Soundguy]

sometimes we got more time.. sometimes we got more money.

when i made those i had less money and more time. that ford 4600 they are hanging on was part of the 'problem'.

I had been looking for a ford rowcrop from 55-64 as a project.. they normally go for about 1000-2500$ MAX and many times an average of 1500$ or so.. they make good fun cheap projects. I ran across that 4600 a 78 model.. i really wasn't looking for a large 3 cyl ford of that year.. but at the price.. it was ?? can't recall now.. but something crazy like 3000$.. stupid crazy for that size of 3 cyl ford.. so crazy i just could not say no.... sure.. it was rough.. fenders were bad.. needed 3pt work..ps leaked.. alt didn't charge.. no kill pull cable, etc.. no muffler... but it started and ran good! and i got a free 6' beater mower with it if i bought it that day.. so I grabbed it.. fixed everything ont he cheap.. i think the only real parts cost I had in it was a fuel kill cable, oil and filter changes, a lil bit of hardware on the power steering, gasket/oring kit for the hyds, roll of 14awg wire to re wire her.. and a cheap-o stanley muffler.. oh yeah, and a very affordable good condition salvage air cleaner cover. the rest was hand work.. and lots of it. lotsa welding and wire wheeling and sanding and wrenching.

the initial purchase ran me over my alloted play budget that year since i was really looking for a machine half that $.. thus I had to make the bumper out of salvaged scrap metal, fixed the mower with a good bit of welding rod and scrap iron, and an amazingly cheap seal.. plus thosevirtually free concrete weights that came from leftover bags of 'crete i had from a project.. plus leftover fence wire.. pluss old carriage bolts I had from a trailer deck redo that were in a salvage bucket... so on that one... i made do..

[Car Doc]

Yup I agree nice job on the weights Soundguy they look great a guy would be hard pressed to find better ones anywhere!

[Soundguy]

witht he black paint on them ( also left over from another project ).. they almost look like cast iron too..

[urbaneagrarian]

Check out Lugghandles. He has quite a few systems that are somewhat universal. Really nice product and nice guy too.
lugghandles.com