Island Farmer
Silver Member
- Joined
- Nov 24, 2011
- Messages
- 102
- Location
- San Juan Islands, WA
- Tractor
- John Deere 5085M, Bobcat A300, Cat V50E forklift, Komatsu PC60-7
I've been out of the loop for a few days... it's fertilizer time up here. Although, the ground is still way too saturated for any tractor work!
Island Farmer's grill looks like a 6000 series, to me. Alot more HD than on my 75M. Would be an awesome feature with some heavy, extruded wire mesh welded to the framework. :thumbsup:
Excepting the height of the tractor with the 34's; they don't appear to be too wide or bulbous, bulky...
Gotta have alot of ballast! Especially.... imperative with a taller profile!
Last week, the local haygrower's had 88 tons of fertilizer shipped in - in 2,000lb bulk bags. One of the farmer's had a 5425 with a 542NSL loader and 400lbs of rear wheel wts (no fluid and no 3pt. weight/attachment) available to unload the semi and load the smaller trailers for people's farm delivery.
Standard bias ply with 18.4x30 rears. Long story short - bag on ground; fertilizer everywhere - and tractor very close to tipping over! Very, very scary to see a tractor begin to "buck and roll" off the bounce and flex of the tires; uncontrollably... until the bag slipped off the forks!
If the bag had not fallen off the forks - I'm convinced that the tractor would have rolled onto the right front wheel and pinned the loader to the ground off the right side of the boom! :shocked:
AKfish
AKfish,
Thanks for you thoughts. I have only been in the cab briefly since the loader and grill guard were installed. The grill guard is definitely heavy duty, no complaint there, I was more wondering about the size and site-lines. I guess there is a balance between unobstructed view and protection.
I am leaning more and more toward going back to the 18.4R30 rears, which actually are wider and have a slightly larger flat plate than the 18.4R34. My quandary is that the main reason that I decided to move up to the 14.9R24 / 18.4R34 combo was to grow my flat plate and load carrying capacity of the front tires. I have calculated the overrun of the original 12.4R24 which for the 18.4R30 is just slightly greater than zero. In the case of the 14.9R24 / 18.4R34 the overrun is about 2.5. and if I went to the 13.6R24 on the front and the 18.4R30 on the rear the overrun would be almost JD's max recommended 5%. Of course over time the fronts will wear and the overrun will decrease somewhat.
Just for reference AKfish, I calculated the overrun of your 11.2/24 Goodyear Dura Torgue tires, it is very similar to my original combo at just over zero. The good part of not much overrun should be less front tire wear, the down side would be that after some wear you might not actually have any overrun or actually some underrun. This is definitely not an area of expertise for me, so if you or anyone else wants to educate me, I am all for it.
Thanks everyone,
Island Farmer