bigpete
Veteran Member
The operator's weight is certainly a factor but the recommendations for ballast do not consider that. I hate to guess, but I imagine that J.D. engineers assume there will be a 175-200 pound operator when they issue ballast specs. In other words, I wouldn't count my own weight as ballast because they probably have not. That kind of assumption is on the safe side of the equation.
Good point about front axle wear. Ballast adds weight to the total weight of the machine, but distributes it more evenly on all four hubs and axles. The thought about axle wear occurred to me this fall when I was moving a stump that must have weighed upward to 700 pounds or more. I upped my ballast to over 650 pounds as well by adding 8-42 pound suitcase weights to my 325 pound box blade. My 190 pounds helped a little. I filled my tires to the max PSI and I felt stable, but still went low and slow. My thought was that, even though I felt stable, the wear on the axles must have been geometrically increased by the load. My common sense told me that if I intended to consistently run my 2210 at the upper margins of its capabilities, I should buy a larger new tractor (then I saw my wife's lovely, but scowling face in my daydream /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif....). It was an isolated job, so I still feel pretty well tooled for 99.99% of my use.
Just to echo, read the manual and if you are still not sure, get in touch with JD--especially if you are not confident in what you have been told by the dealer rep. As was indirectly mentioned, sometimes sales people say stupid things without even thinking. I have had good luck with the salesperson who has sold me my tractors in the past. When we hit a topic or spec he doesn't understand, he refuses to give me an answer and we have made a few calls together and spent quite a bit of time with the technicians over my purchases.
I like a heavy-duty box blade as ballast because it does double duty on occasion. It's easy enough to hang weights on it to get it up to about the same weight as the weight capacity of the bucket. I actually intend to find a few more cheap suitcase weights to offset the weight of the loader in addition the the max load it will lift. Theoretically, the tractor will then be balanced on the axles the way it was intended. If you are using forks, the ballst ratio has to be increased, i.e. more weight in the back because the weight carried on the front is farther forward and moves the center of weight distribution forward on the axles.
My only other advice is that if you find yourself constantly concerned about needing more ballast, perhaps you need a bigger and heavier machine.
Good point about front axle wear. Ballast adds weight to the total weight of the machine, but distributes it more evenly on all four hubs and axles. The thought about axle wear occurred to me this fall when I was moving a stump that must have weighed upward to 700 pounds or more. I upped my ballast to over 650 pounds as well by adding 8-42 pound suitcase weights to my 325 pound box blade. My 190 pounds helped a little. I filled my tires to the max PSI and I felt stable, but still went low and slow. My thought was that, even though I felt stable, the wear on the axles must have been geometrically increased by the load. My common sense told me that if I intended to consistently run my 2210 at the upper margins of its capabilities, I should buy a larger new tractor (then I saw my wife's lovely, but scowling face in my daydream /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif....). It was an isolated job, so I still feel pretty well tooled for 99.99% of my use.
Just to echo, read the manual and if you are still not sure, get in touch with JD--especially if you are not confident in what you have been told by the dealer rep. As was indirectly mentioned, sometimes sales people say stupid things without even thinking. I have had good luck with the salesperson who has sold me my tractors in the past. When we hit a topic or spec he doesn't understand, he refuses to give me an answer and we have made a few calls together and spent quite a bit of time with the technicians over my purchases.
I like a heavy-duty box blade as ballast because it does double duty on occasion. It's easy enough to hang weights on it to get it up to about the same weight as the weight capacity of the bucket. I actually intend to find a few more cheap suitcase weights to offset the weight of the loader in addition the the max load it will lift. Theoretically, the tractor will then be balanced on the axles the way it was intended. If you are using forks, the ballst ratio has to be increased, i.e. more weight in the back because the weight carried on the front is farther forward and moves the center of weight distribution forward on the axles.
My only other advice is that if you find yourself constantly concerned about needing more ballast, perhaps you need a bigger and heavier machine.
