Does the weight of the FEL give you more stability??

[RaydaKub]

Exactly. I was thinking along this same line. If you have to use the FEL to stop a roll, that is very good, but what are you going to do next? You're going to have to winch the tractor or something to get it out of the situation you got into in the first place! Maybe you could drive with it dragging in float mode? Eh. Seems pretty precarious. Better to just be more stable from the start.

Hey Joshua, You can take some credit for this, you know. This is all just an extension of your excellent explanation of ballast.

An additional thought on this: It doesn't work very well to drag bucket on a sidehill. It tends to want to dive downhill. But having it on the ground will tend to make the tippy forces 100% on the lower wheel outside edge (and it's direct mirror, the outside edge of the bucket). So you can get to the ideal after all.

 

[MHarryE]

When I do heavy pulling with my tractor I add weight to the bucket and keep the bucket low in order to maintain front wheel traction. Do I lose side to side stability? Probably, but I am careful never to get into a position where that is important. Still the fact is that I know of several neighbors who have rolled their older loader equipped tractors on fairly level ground and none of them had the loader raised high at the time of roll-over. They had low rear end ballast and ran into a dynamic condition that flipped them - rock, rut, mud. When doing something like moving our 1200 - 1500 pound round bales, the front bale is picked up last and dropped off first. I need that bale on the back to give the rears all the load and stability possible before thinking of messing with the loader. And with a soft bale on the back you do less damage to your pickup when you hit it than you do when you hit it with a box blade.

 

[RaydaKub]

With a front end that pivots the tractor has three points of contact, each rear tire and the pivot, a triangle contact patch. The black arrows on the front mean nothing until you reach the pivot stop, by then it could be too late. When you drop the loader you eliminate the pivot and now have a square. That moves the side to side COG from the outside of the pivot point to the inside of the outer edge of the bucket. What you have done is make the front diagram look identical to the rear diagram.

Yes, that is exactly right. Only now, while you have stopped the roll, you have your self statically positioned between a rock (driving downhill on the bucket) and a hard place (lifting the FEL to go back to the trouble).

The FEL does not add 0.000001% to the stability until it is planted on the ground and the front wheels are in the air. But until it is on the ground, it is 200% working against you (it's weight plus what it transferred from the rear end). That 200% is enough to remove a lot of pucker.

I've demonstrated this to myself by actually getting off my tractor on the hillside and being able to lift the uphill wheel w/ the FEL and not being able to lift it w/o the FEL, despite adding ballast within about 25 lbs of the weight of the FEL. It's only a BX, so it is easy to do this by hand. But the angles and effects are the same no matter how big the tractor is. Width, height, and weight only change the timing of the tipping effect, not how it works.

 

[crazyal]

Yes, that is exactly right. Only now, while you have stopped the roll, you have your self statically positioned between a rock (driving downhill on the bucket) and a hard place (lifting the FEL to go back to the trouble).

The FEL does not add 0.000001% to the stability until it is planted on the ground and the front wheels are in the air. But until it is on the ground, it is 200% working against you (it's weight plus what it transferred from the rear end). That 200% is enough to remove a lot of pucker.

I've demonstrated this to myself by actually getting off my tractor on the hillside and being able to lift the uphill wheel w/ the FEL and not being able to lift it w/o the FEL, despite adding ballast within about 25 lbs of the weight of the FEL. It's only a BX, so it is easy to do this by hand. But the angles and effects are the same no matter how big the tractor is. Width, height, and weight only change the timing of the tipping effect, not how it works.

I would rather be stuck in a hard place and still have the tractor on all four tires than test the ROPS. Plus, like you said, when you drop the bucket the front will want to slide down the hill, that's most likely a good thing. I would even use the rear brake to encourage it unless there's a reason why I can't drive down the hill.

 

[RaydaKub]

I would rather be stuck in a hard place and still have the tractor on all four tires than test the ROPS. Plus, like you said, when you drop the bucket the front will want to slide down the hill, that's most likely a good thing. I would even use the rear brake to encourage it unless there's a reason why I can't drive down the hill.

I won't disagree with anything there (except it isn't on 4 wheels. It is on 2 wheels and a steel plate!). But, getting back to the OP's question, is it more stable with the FEL or less?

The answer is it is less stable. And while you have put yourself in a more precarious position by having the FEL attached, you also are making the assumption that you will hit the FEL stick fast enough to prevent the roll. I know, we ride with our hand on the stick and go slow. But if you didn't have the FEL at all, you may not tip either.

 

[joshuabardwell]

you also are making the assumption that you will hit the FEL stick fast enough to prevent the roll.

YES! And how many times have you heard somebody say how fast rollovers happen? "One second I was driving, and then I was upside down!"

 

[LD1]

But, getting back to the OP's question, is it more stable with the FEL or less?

I dont really think anyone is disagreeing that it is less stable w/the FEL. But also keep in mind that it is less stable SIDEWAYS. The OP never specified.

Stability going UP a hill is FAR better with FEL ON. Stability going down is better with it OFF, BUT (and a big but) I leave it on going down. There has been more than once in slick/icy or muddy conditions with 4 tires sliding and the FEL is the only thing that stopped me.

 

[RaydaKub]

I dont really think anyone is disagreeing that it is less stable w/the FEL. But also keep in mind that it is less stable SIDEWAYS. The OP never specified.

Stability going UP a hill is FAR better with FEL ON. Stability going down is better with it OFF, BUT (and a big but) I leave it on going down. There has been more than once in slick/icy or muddy conditions with 4 tires sliding and the FEL is the only thing that stopped me.

Oh absolutely! That big ol' emergency brake on the front is nice to have and I've used it myself more than once. But would the rear wheels have broken loose if it wasn't for the FEL in the first place? On a downhill slope, you've transferred more than 200% of the loader's weight to the front wheels. They have a smaller contact patch and now WAY more weight than they would have had w/o the FEL. I don't know what the weight transfer is w/o the FEL to just go downhill, but if my BX is any indication, the FEL weighs 400 lbs and so it will transfer over 800 lbs to the front end. On a base tractor weight of 1200, that's a LOT!

On my hill, I'll go into a free fall w/ the FEL on and only rear wheel drive. I can go down the same hill and not break loose w/o the FEL (or ballast). My hill is pretty safe place to do so, nothing at the bottom, it just levels out to meadow.

It would be interesting to do some controlled experiments on slopes w/ and w/o FEL. Use the same tractor and observe when / how it breaks loose under both configurations and in various conditions like dry dirt, grass, mud, ice and do it on varying degrees of slope.

 

[LD1]

When sliding down an icy driveway on rubber tires, I dont think an extra 10000lbs on the rears would stop it. Kinda get into a situation where added weight would help traction...sure....but also added weight to help pull you down the hill.

And in 4wd, and braking, its not like the weight taken off the rears is totally lost. You loose some tractive braking it the rear but gain some up front.

 

[SPYDERLK]

You dont account for the reduced proportion of the composite tractor/implement weight that rests on the rears. COG height may be slightly lower but is shifted much more forward. ... Also, yes the front pivot divides weight equally between the 2 fronts -- BUT only on level ground. On a slope a vertical line to the ground from the pivot shows the actual division point. Thus a lower front pivot would cause more equal sharing on a slope.
larry

In regards to an axle on a pivot, the two tires on it cannot be experiencing different forces unless it has hit a pivot stop.

Incorrect for the reason stated in post 24. Weight acts straight down - not straight toward the ground.
larry

I'm sorry guys but it looks like I can't convince you that the front tires do have equal force on them. Just put it to practice to verify what I have said. If the front axle can pivot while you are driving on a sidehill, then they are both experiencing equal forces. If it can pivot, the force must be "equal and opposite" on both wheels. In regards to stability, I also stand by claim that if the weight from the FEL COG is below the tractor's COG, then it can only help side roll. In regards to the rear sliding out. Depending on the weight of the FEL compared to your tractor the lightening of the rear end may have more of an affect for some then others, but I have not said that the rear end would not be lightened. Good luck!

Note that Rays post 43 shows pictorily why the center pivot does not divide wheel load evenly on a slope.
Thanks Ray. :star:
larry