Baby got some new shoes!!
One of the rear tires had some severe sidewall cracking on the outside, and one of the fronts had a really deep sidewall cut/gouge, in addition to being fairly low on tread.
For those looking for tires, I found a good deal on new "overstock" tires (Likely seconds or blems) through Tiretown in Leavenworth KS.
Link to their listings on ebay might work for a while...
I've wanted to bump up to 12.00 fronts for a while, and finally got that chance. By noting that I barely had to steer to relieve any 4wd bind, I deduced that I have virtually no front lead with the 10.00-16s and 17.5L24's that were on the tractor. To keep from having too much lead, I bumped the rears from 17.5L's to 16.9's at the same time.
To put numbers to it, the front tire size bump was about a 9% increase, while the rear bump was only about 6.5%. Since I didn't have much front lead at all with the present tires, and I was getting a LOT of crow hop in turns while running the loader in 4wd, I figured this would be OK.
I also elected to try out some R14 front tires, rather than just re-shoe with R4's. Seemed to me that the R14's would offer better traction in our wet clay, as well as in the snow.
Everyone loves pics...
New front tires look HUGE...
Front tires before:
New front tires:
New rears too!!
I'll probably eventually have a go at the rear tires with my grooving iron to make them look a little more like the front tires but for now, I have better things to do.
With the 10's on the front, I ran about 18psi, and if it dropped below 15psi, I could push a bead off pretty easily using the loader with only the box blade on the back. With the 12's I'm at 14psi presently, and with a full scoop and only the box on the back, there's a bit of squash, but not enough to worry that the bead will push off. Much better flotation on the front this way, and I'm happy with the results.
Please don't comment to tell me I have too much front lead. I would estimate it at around 5%, but perhaps as high as 7% (Oh the
humanity!!) On this tractor, the additional lead makes loader work much less hoppy when turning, which means less binding. Though I can feel a little drag on hard surfaces, I don't run 4wd on hard surfaces. (Duh)
Overall there is far less binding when I'm running the loader in 4wd, especially with the backhoe attached. (~1800lbs of "ballast" off the back...) IMO, the overall strain on the front driveline, taking into account both traveling in a straight line, and turning while running the loader, is actually LESS than before, when I had virtually no lead.
I did a little before/after ideal steering angle, to see where the steering needed to be to shift freely in and out of 4wd. I was barely turning before, while I now am about 1/3 of the way to the stops. I like it!!
And I like the R14 tires. Got to play in the mud some, and it steers so much better than the half worn R4's. I'll also add the the R14's I found were 4 ply rated, not 6 ply, but since I never ran the 6 ply 10's anywhere near their 45psi max pressure, I don't expect it'll be an issue.
Time will tell how well they wear. There's certainly a bit less tread surface contact on hard surfaces, but if they wear a bit faster, I'll just replace them in 10 years instead of 16.
