turn wheels around to widen stance?

[Ginormous]

Both my front and rear rims are fixed and bell-shaped. Adding 8" to my 44" rear width is a big increase and gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

DeepNdirt -- you said that for the front tires I should, "be sure that the bearings and spindles are not already worn." Is there an easy way to make sure before I find out the hard way?

 

[clemsonfor]

Both my front and rear rims are fixed and bell-shaped. Adding 8" to my 44" rear width is a big increase and gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

DeepNdirt -- you said that for the front tires I should, "be sure that the bearings and spindles are not already worn." Is there an easy way to make sure before I find out the hard way?

Jack it up and feel for wobble, but thats less scientific and could just be from a loose castle nut. Its not that hard to take the wheel nut off and look.

 

[deepNdirt]

Both my front and rear rims are fixed and bell-shaped. Adding 8" to my 44" rear width is a big increase and gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

DeepNdirt -- you said that for the front tires I should, "be sure that the bearings and spindles are not already worn." Is there an easy way to make sure before I find out the hard way?

Yes just as Clemson said, not likely that it has any problems SOs as long as the bearings have been kept packed, and also not likely ever a FEL installed and then removed, it would take a combination of a few things to wear down a spindle, lack of grease, excessive weight load on the front, rims being flipped with un-greased bearings,etc,etc, Although if the bearings look packed good with grease the spindles are most likely good as well,

What size wheels does your 1700 have that you can gain 8 inches width by flipping sides?

 

[Ginormous]

The turf tires say:

Firestone 8.3-24 on 7" rim R-3 Tubeless


Just pulled out my tape measure, and it looks like the rim mounts are ~ 1.5" off-center on the rim -- the rim square has a bell shape. If my math is good, I can flip that around, and instead of being 1.5" closer to the tractor it will be 1.5" farther, i.e., 1.5 + 1.5 = 3. Doing this to both tires gives me 6" additional width; still more than 10% additional just by turning them around. :thumbsup:

 

[deepNdirt]

The turf tires say:

Firestone 8.3-24 on 7" rim R-3 Tubeless


Just pulled out my tape measure, and it looks like the rim mounts are ~ 1.5" off-center on the rim -- the rim square has a bell shape. If my math is good, I can flip that around, and instead of being 1.5" closer to the tractor it will be 1.5" farther, i.e., 1.5 + 1.5 = 3. Doing this to both tires gives me 6" additional width; still more than 10% additional just by turning them around. :thumbsup:

This is yet another example of the variables of wheels, the wheels on my 1700 are 8 wide and have ( roughly speaking ) 5" inset and 3" offset , the actual area of the bolt holes has another 5/8 or so dish reducing the offset by even less, My 1700 as it sets with the rear wheels flipped are span 49"
the front are 42"....... the factory specs show that our 1700 have 44" rear wheel span, I'm sure my wheels have been changed, I'm almost thinking the wheels came from a Ym-2000

 

[dennis52]

I am planning to widen my Kioti's AG tyres from No. 1 setting (the narrowest) to:
No.3 setting which will will place the outside of the tyres about 1/2 an inch inside the width of the rear mounted slasher (brushog) each side or

setting no. 4 which will place the outside of the tyres about 1 1/2 inches wider than the slasher each side.

Any thoughts ?

 

[deepNdirt]

I am planning to widen my Kioti's AG tyres from No. 1 setting (the narrowest) to:
No.3 setting which will will place the outside of the tyres about 1/2 an inch inside the width of the rear mounted slasher (brushog) each side or

setting no. 4 which will place the outside of the tyres about 1 1/2 inches wider than the slasher each side.

Any thoughts ?

The adjustment on the wheel span would have more to do with the type terrain you'd be traveling on, Hills etc,etc, the wider span the more stable the tractor becomes, although never be too confident while using a tractor on out of level terrain no matter how wide of wheel span the tractor has, there is always that chance of turnover,
I would say use #3 setting, Just as we use our tire tracks when cutting our lawns with a mower as reference to cut the next path,.. well that and the already cut grass hight it works the same with using a Slasher/ brush hog on a tractor, Its always better for me to overlap the already cut grass, this helps the blade to keep up momentum while cutting in tall grasses, Not really looking for a consistent path just a way to ease the use of the tractor and cutter,

I have a 48" cutter, although I actually cut approx 42" cut at a pass, another thing I have tried is cutting both clockwise & counter clockwise and found no different or it to be any better one way or the other, so i continue to cut clockwise,

 

[Ginormous]

Update... I turned the back tires around and got them bolted back on. It's obvious that it's wider and definitely gives me a warm feeling, BUT reality is that it only added 4.5" to the width (measured 2.25" extra on each side.) Less than I thought I'd get, but not bad really, about 10% wider for less than 10 minutes of work! :thumbsup:

 

[Ginormous]

I saw in another thread somewhere people discussing a similar issue. They were saying that turning around the tires to widen the stance was a bad idea because it changed the way the weight was distributed on the wheel bearings. Any thoughts on that?

 

[winston1]

I have not heard anything negative about widening the rears, just the front. On page 30 of my YM2002D operation manual it says to run tires as wide as possible when using tractor on steep hills. My 2002d wheels can only swap sides but some Yanmars allow you to unbolt the center section of the wheel and re-bolt in several alternate mounting positions.