TN 70 Rear wheels

[crazyhorsemd]

Recently purchased TN70. Neighbor noticed that rear wheels were "set out" . Said it would be better to swap side to have wheels set narrower. He said previous owner must have been on hilly area and set out for stability and said, since I have flat land it would be better on bearings to swap side and make track narrower. Any thoughts?? Use it for pulling bush hog, general work, not plowing fields.

Thanks

 

[Gee Ray]

Does your mower cover your tracks? If it does I would leave them set wide. Do you have a FEL? Again the wide stance is a good thing. Unless you plan on using the tractor for 30 - 40 years I would not worry about the bearings.

 

[crazyhorsemd]

Thanks for the rapid input
With the present wide setting the mower rides between , slightly inside the tire track. what is FEL

 

[RickB]

Front
End
Loader

 

[redman135]

Wide is good. You can still roll on flat ground if you make a sudden turn. As for bearing trouble, nope. My old 1964 MF135 I inherited from my father had it's wheels set to max width ALL it's life and never had any trouble. It had done between 10000 and 11000 hours.(No it is not a misprint.)

 

[downslope]

Do the front wheels line up with the rear, ie. are they set wide also? I like to have them lining up either on centers, inside or outside edges.

For the mowing it would be better if the mower covered the wheel tracks, otherwise subsequent passes would have to be made with the wheels running inside the prior pass.

You might want to make an intermediate micro-adjustment and you may be able to keep the tire/wheels on the same side, that way you only have to remove one wheel at a time. Depending on tire size you may not even be able to simply switch side-to-side without running into clearance problems. The operator's manual will often list the minimum wheel spacing for specific tire sizes.

 

[Dataway]

Personally I would always opt for the wider track width. You can never have too much stability. In most case the narrow setting was a consideration for various types of farming where row width, getting between trees etc. might be an issue.

 

[CoyPatton]

Generally speaking, wider is safer and much more stable. Some wheels centers are factory welded to the rim and some are bolted. If yours are the bolted style (and there are several styles within this group) you can do some adjustment to the width, this can be even more so by swapping wheels to the other side.
Now realize that the rear wheel bearings are designed to support the majority of the weight of the tractor and the force required to work any/all rear attachment implements. Thus your rear bearings should hold up for 10,000’s of hours. So unless you are using your tractor in a commercial environment, we are talking your grandchildren not having to replace the rear bearings, and if using in a commercial environment, you will replace the tractor before replacing those bearings.
As for the front wheels, I would leave them narrow as most front bearings are not designed for as much stress. This is even more important if it has a loader installed.
Now one last comment which offsets the wider rear stance, if you use your tractor in areas where you must go through narrow spaces, then arrange your width to be as wide as possible to fit within the space without going more narrow than the minimum spacing as specified by the manufacture.

 

[crazyhorsemd]

Thanks all
Personally I prefer the wider stance for stability. The mower is slightly narrower than the wheels but no big deal to me to make extra pass.. It has served me well so far.