rScotty
Super Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2001
- Messages
- 9,527
- Location
- Rural mountains - Colorado
- Tractor
- Kubota M59, JD530, JD310SG. Restoring Yanmar YM165D
I hear you on slippery slopes. There just isn't an answer to using a FEL with 2wd on much of a slope.
The reason is simply that all the weight is out front which lifts the rear wheels ....turning poor traction into no traction.
I went to wide tires and ran chains all the time. Eventually I made up a set of really good fitting automotive chains that fit like skins on wider rear tires and that helped some. A friend of mine went one step farther on his heavy Massey 2wd. His Massey didn't have power steering so a FEL would have been pointless even if he had been able to find a subframe for his tractor and then find a front end loader to fit that, beefed up the hydraulics. etc.
So instead of all that and still ending up with an FEL on a 2wd, he put a reversible dirt scoop on the 3pt. That put the weight over the driving wheels, lightened the steering, and he got by for 20 years. I used to kid him that his solution was just good enough to keep him from ever getting a decent 4wd tractor with loader.
Back in the day when all tractors were 2wd, it was rare to see a Front End Loader on any tractor. What you are experiencing is probably why loaders never got popular back then. In fact, a lot of tractors up until fairly recently didn't even have the necessary frames for mounting loaders. Most tractors were a connected series of castings from front to back. The axle pivoted on the front of the engine casting and the rear axles stuck out the sides of the aftermost casting.....with a cast bell housing bolted to a cast transmission inbetween. So not only was there no loader, there wasn't even a place to mount one. The solution to that was to buy an aftermarket steel sub-frame to connect the front and back of the tractor together. Those subframes were specific to each tractor.
A 3pt reversible dirt scoop isn't such a bad solution.
rScotty
The reason is simply that all the weight is out front which lifts the rear wheels ....turning poor traction into no traction.
I went to wide tires and ran chains all the time. Eventually I made up a set of really good fitting automotive chains that fit like skins on wider rear tires and that helped some. A friend of mine went one step farther on his heavy Massey 2wd. His Massey didn't have power steering so a FEL would have been pointless even if he had been able to find a subframe for his tractor and then find a front end loader to fit that, beefed up the hydraulics. etc.
So instead of all that and still ending up with an FEL on a 2wd, he put a reversible dirt scoop on the 3pt. That put the weight over the driving wheels, lightened the steering, and he got by for 20 years. I used to kid him that his solution was just good enough to keep him from ever getting a decent 4wd tractor with loader.
Back in the day when all tractors were 2wd, it was rare to see a Front End Loader on any tractor. What you are experiencing is probably why loaders never got popular back then. In fact, a lot of tractors up until fairly recently didn't even have the necessary frames for mounting loaders. Most tractors were a connected series of castings from front to back. The axle pivoted on the front of the engine casting and the rear axles stuck out the sides of the aftermost casting.....with a cast bell housing bolted to a cast transmission inbetween. So not only was there no loader, there wasn't even a place to mount one. The solution to that was to buy an aftermarket steel sub-frame to connect the front and back of the tractor together. Those subframes were specific to each tractor.
A 3pt reversible dirt scoop isn't such a bad solution.
rScotty