Fluid or Weights???

[buickanddeere]

Your paragraph is simply inaccurate. To think fuel in the tank will have a larger impact on COG than tire weight is kinda na?e. And to think the driver has a greater impact than a weighted tire is even more na?e. Sloshing liguid ballast would not have a measurable effect in flipping a tractor until it already starts the roll, then of course, it's significance is irrelevant. Lastly, how did you decide that equal liquid ballast/cast weights would result in a better pull for the cast weight tire??

The cost difference alone outweighs (sorry) any advantage cast weights may have. So, I added 1500lbs to my tractor for around $200 using fluid. 1500lb of cast weights would have cost me in the neighborhood of $1500 at my Kubota dealer. :confused3:

Cast weight=$1.00 p/lb. Fluid weight=.13 cents p/lb.

How much does the fuel and driver weight? How much higher is the fuel and driver than the tires? There will be more effect on center of gravity on a small to medium sized tractor with the fuel load and driver's weight. Than if the tires are dry with cast or the tires are liquid ballasted to the same weight.

 

[vtsnowedin]

All good points, but I keep going back to the initial concern about tire repairs. My brother and I have experience with all forms of ballast and have plugged endless numbers of tires, my brother began his professional career as a tractor mechanic at the age of seventeen. When we began clearing our farm, we had to put tire sealant in everything that went in our woods or we were plugging thorns several times a day. For our uses, fluid in the tires simply did not work.

We now have about nine tractors and a backhoe and use combinations of fluid, nothing, cast centers, weights and combinations. We no longer have the thorns, but if we did, we would go back to what worked for us best initially which was not fluid filled tires and sealant, great now, but not so much otherwise. I can't think of anything more unstable on a slope than a flat.

I don't have a beef with any of that as long as you keep those wicked thorns down in Missouri where they belong. The rest of us who don't compact landfills or drive over hot coals on a daily basis or over cactus patches do all right with fluid filed tires.
May you never have another flat!

 

[buickanddeere]

Your paragraph is simply inaccurate. To think fuel in the tank will have a larger impact on COG than tire weight is kinda na?e. And to think the driver has a greater impact than a weighted tire is even more na?e. Sloshing liguid ballast would not have a measurable effect in flipping a tractor until it already starts the roll, then of course, it's significance is irrelevant. Lastly, how did you decide that equal liquid ballast/cast weights would result in a better pull for the cast weight tire??

The cost difference alone outweighs (sorry) any advantage cast weights may have. So, I added 1500lbs to my tractor for around $200 using fluid. 1500lb of cast weights would have cost me in the neighborhood of $1500 at my Kubota dealer. :confused3:

Cast weight=$1.00 p/lb. Fluid weight=.13 cents p/lb.

The cast weights are always worth $1500, the liquid ballast is a liability. Servicing a tire leak on a dry tire is much simpler and cheaper than a wet tire. CaCl ballasted tires will eventually corrode the rim .

 

[buickanddeere]

Deere , Titan and Firestone all claim that liquid ballast stiffens tractor tires. What has more more traction, a stiff or flexible tire? Power hop clearly makes the point.
Removing the liquid ballast and adding cast ballast softens the tire increases traction.

How to control power hop: MFWD and 4WD Tractors : Mechanical Front-Wheel Drive (MFWD) and 4WD Tractors may jump or bounce during field operation, creating an uncomfortable ride and loss of traction.

Field Power Hop on Four Wheel Drive Tractors | Firestone Agricultural Tire

 

[allen in texas]

Why does that not surprise me Allen???

whatcher point?

 

[vtsnowedin]

Deere , Titan and Firestone all claim that liquid ballast stiffens tractor tires. What has more more traction, a stiff or flexible tire? Power hop clearly makes the point.
Removing the liquid ballast and adding cast ballast softens the tire increases traction.

How to control power hop: MFWD and 4WD Tractors : Mechanical Front-Wheel Drive (MFWD) and 4WD Tractors may jump or bounce during field operation, creating an uncomfortable ride and loss of traction.

Field Power Hop on Four Wheel Drive Tractors | Firestone Agricultural Tire

Note that both bulletins are about large tractors with dual or even triple tires on all four corners. Not many here need to worry about how many sections a day you can till.

 

[Tx Jim]

The cast weights are always worth $1500, the liquid ballast is a liability. Servicing a tire leak on a dry tire is much simpler and cheaper than a wet tire. CaCl ballasted tires will eventually corrode the rim .

Maybe the other posters have a similar problem as you and their wife won't let them buy the $1500 weights! Here you go getting up on your anti CaCl SOAPBOX!

 

[ovrszd]

So I missed a zero while thumbing the message on my phone............ The fact is that if all other parameters are identical. A dry tire with 500lbs of cast weight will pull more than the same tire with liquid ballast.

I knew you had missed a zero by mistake and did not even mention that.

Explain how you arrive at the point that a cast weight tire will outpull a liquid filled tire of the same weight??

 

[ovrszd]

How much does the fuel and driver weight? How much higher is the fuel and driver than the tires? There will be more effect on center of gravity on a small to medium sized tractor with the fuel load and driver's weight. Than if the tires are dry with cast or the tires are liquid ballasted to the same weight.

That might be so on my JD2210 SCUT. Not so much on anything bigger. And my Utility class tractor has the fuel tank under the driver's feet. But I don't think it's a valid enough point to enter into this discussion. I weigh 180 lbs, my M9540 holds 26 gallons of fuel which would weigh in the neighborhood of 200lbs. Insignificant when compared to the 1500lbs of fluid and 250lbs of tire weight that it carries.

 

[ovrszd]

whatcher point?

That I consider you an equipped operator that overcomes all challenges.