Advice for first tractor please

[Tharg]

Tharg - where are you located in the UK - nearest larger city? The north and highlands gets some snow, then the south, Devon/Cornwall region little.

Assume rolling hills and pasture land?

We live in an area known as the West Midlands. Birmingham is an hour away, Coventry half an hour and then there are smaller yet sizeable towns like Rugby and Leamington Spa which are quite close.

It is pretty flat where we are. Our land slopes very gently towards the nearby river Leam and is covered in shallow ridge and furrow ( you can just about make It out in the photo).It is not rolling hills but is pasture land ideal fro sheep and cows.

The area doesn't suffer from extremes of weather. However, the ground is wet from October to May. We are on clay and once the rains start, the ground remains soft for a long time. After a storm, we might get pools of water but, given the chance , they go but leave the ground soggy

For all you historians out there , we are next to an abandoned mediaeval village. Some say it was abandoned as a result of the Plague; others that a natural decline in population was brought about by diminishing returns from the land which was becoming less and less fruitful.
Some of the ridge and furrow was partly the remains of mediaeval strip farming; Some was the result of more modern attempts to provide dry ridges of land for grazing animals.

 

[arrow]

As l get more of a feel of what you want to do, most of your stuff involves a rear attachment. You may be able to get away with a 2wd machine and if you have a cutter or rototiller attached to the back, you could have all the traction you need.
I assume you don’t get much snow but chains on a 12.4 x24 ag tire can get you through lots of stuff.
It was why the Ford 8n was developed.
Also, we had horses for 25 years but none were trained for tire disposal.

 

[Tharg]

A few hundred, farmed it all with a 50 HP 2wd loader tractor for many years. My point is not to rule out a bigger 2wd loader tractor if the price is right and it will physically fit where you need it to go. The weight and larger tires will offset the lack of front drive wheels compared to smaller 4wd compact.

At least over here, the old 2wd utilities with a loader are often half the price of a 4wd compact with loader.

Tharg - where are you located in the UK - nearest larger city? The north and highlands gets some snow, then the south, Devon/Cornwall region little.

Assume rolling hills and pasture land?

We live in an area know

As l get more of a feel of what you want to do, most of your stuff involves a rear attachment. You may be able to get away with a 2wd machine and if you have a cutter or rototiller attached to the back, you could have all the traction you need.
I assume you don’t get much snow but chains on a 12.4 x24 ag tire can get you through lots of stuff.
It was why the Ford 8n was developed.
Also, we had horses for 25 years but none were trained for tire disposal.

Haha! We are training him to pull a harrow

 

[Carl_NH]

So Tharg there are a lot of 2WD older tractors for sale near Coventry but very few with loaders but here is a nice Kubota with loader 37 HP and 65 hours that would do nicely for you. But the price is not listed and it does not have a QA bucket (key for changing implements like pallet fortks etc). Auto Trader Farm - New and Used Farm For Sale

The older ones over there seem reasonably priced but will need some regular wrenching to keep in operation. The benefit of a newer unit is little to no repairs needed.

 

[rScotty]

Glad you brought this up.
One of the biggest mistake l see ppl making with a 4wd tractor in the 2000 to 3000 lb weight category is to think 4wd is a panacea for traction w a loaded bucket. Having seen more than my share of broken toothed ring and or pinion gears of fwd componentry, l’d say proper ballast is way more important. As a matter of fact, l’d go as far as saying to not use 4wd with a heavy fel load unless you’ve really loaded up your rear weight especially in slippery conditions and no, simply loading the rear tires would be insufficient.
The front gearing on these compacts is really too small to walk around with 1500 lbs of frontal load on a constant or even a one off in slippery or icy conditions.

I've seen the same thing in my shop. People have become so used to cars having full time 4wd these days that they don't realize 4wd on tractors is built differently. It is not the same. Compact and Utility tractors have an old fashioned kind of part time 4wd assist. It is best used only to get the tractor down a hill or through a spot of poor traction - then immediately shift right back to 2wd. It won't hold up full time.

Anything more than moving a few feet with the FEL loaded is risking the front axle and front driveshaft. Certainly don't just put it in 4wd and just drive around. And for sure always use 4wd as little as possible with a load in the bucket. Just for a few feet and then back to 2wd.

The standard test is to check if the tractor is hard to shift OUT of 4wd - if the 4wd lever seems stuck in 4wd. If so, that means it was driven too far with 4wd engaged. If that happens, put the bucket down to raise the front end which should take the load off that lever. If that has to be done too often, it leads to big repairs.

rScotty

 

[rScotty]

A few hundred, farmed it all with a 50 HP 2wd loader tractor for many years. My point is not to rule out a bigger 2wd loader tractor if the price is right and it will physically fit where you need it to go. The weight and larger tires will offset the lack of front drive wheels compared to smaller 4wd compact.

At least over here, the old 2wd utilities with a loader are often half the price of a 4wd compact with loader.

I've found the same thing. You can pick up a whole lot tractor for very little money by going large and 2wd. Which is exactly why we have an large older 2wd tractor - a two cylinder JD. I weighs about 8000 lbs, has a long wide wheelbase, and traction is never a problem even without counterweights or loaded tires. It does have cast iron wheels. In fact, it tends to have cast iron everywere that other tractors have sheet metal.

I only know two downsides to a larger 2wd tractor.
One problem it has is you have to back down hills because the brakes are on the rears only. Traveling down even a short slope forwards can easily lead to a runaway.
The other problem is turning in deep snow or mud. The front tires will just plow unless we use the individual wheel brakes just right. Those brakes get a lot of use with 2wd in sloppy conditions.

Make that three downsides, because the third is you sure can tell where it has been. Just driving over soft ground leaves big ruts to deal with.

rScotty

 

[arrow]

I've seen the same thing in my shop. People have become so used to cars having full time 4wd these days that they don't realize 4wd on tractors is built differently. It is not the same. Compact and Utility tractors have an old fashioned kind of part time 4wd assist. It is best used only to get the tractor down a hill or through a spot of poor traction - then immediately shift right back to 2wd. It won't hold up full time.

Anything more than moving a few feet with the FEL loaded is risking the front axle and front driveshaft. Certainly don't just put it in 4wd and just drive around. And for sure always use 4wd as little as possible with a load in the bucket. Just for a few feet and then back to 2wd.

The standard test is to check if the tractor is hard to shift OUT of 4wd - if the 4wd lever seems stuck in 4wd. If so, that means it was driven too far with 4wd engaged. If that happens, put the bucket down to raise the front end which should take the load off that lever. If that has to be done too often, it leads to big repairs.

rScotty

We had a customer lamb blasting us for selling junk tractors when we told him he snapped a tooth off his fwd ring gear on his 1626 Mahindra.
He said he moved only 1 ft off of his log pile.
I asked what was on the fel.
He stated he only had a small log.
I said was it the log that was in front of the tractor when l came to pick it up? He said “maybe”. How should he know as he had picked up so many.

If you play me straight, l’ll remain a total gentleman. When you treat me as a fool and try to camouflage actuality, l tend not to be so proper.
I told him exactly what happened in that he had a 1500 lb oak stem, 12 ft long on his fel when the tractor slipped for a second on an icy patch in front of his pile and when the tire regained traction, it snapped the tooth.
The ring gear was $700 with labor coming to another $650 and it was all covered under warranty even though he abused his tractor.

 

[rScotty]

We had a customer lamb blasting us for selling junk tractors when we told him he snapped a tooth off his fwd ring gear on his 1626 Mahindra.
He said he moved only 1 ft off of his log pile.
I asked what was on the fel.
He stated he only had a small log.
I said was it the log that was in front of the tractor when l came to pick it up? He said “maybe”. How should he know as he had picked up so many.

If you play me straight, l’ll remain a total gentleman. When you treat me as a fool and try to camouflage actuality, l tend not to be so proper.
I told him exactly what happened in that he had a 1500 lb oak stem, 12 ft long on his fel when the tractor slipped for a second on an icy patch in front of his pile and when the tire regained traction, it snapped the tooth.
The ring gear was $700 with labor coming to another $650 and it was all covered under warranty even though he abused his tractor.

My hat's off to you for how you handled it. The prices even seem reasonable.

Climbing up onto my soapbox now, I do believe that too many tractor manufacturers are causing unnecessary problems by clinging to outdated technology.
They could easily strengthen and modernize that 1970s vintage bevel gear front axle. And while they are at it, add front brakes to the tractor for safety. Plus add a small differential in series with the front driveshaft to eliminate shaft windup there.
These changes all use well-known technology and would make a big difference to tractor owners.

rScotty

 

[arrow]

My hat's off to you for how you handled it. The prices even seem reasonable.

Climbing up onto my soapbox now, I do believe that too many tractor manufacturers are causing unnecessary problems by clinging to outdated technology.
They could easily strengthen and modernize that 1970s vintage bevel gear front axle. And while they are at it, add front brakes to the tractor for safety. Plus add a small differential in series with the front driveshaft to eliminate shaft windup there.
These changes all use well-known technology and would make a big difference to tractor owners.

rScotty

Part of the problem in my mind is tractor manufacturers penchant of making the fronts way smaller than the rears. That was fine when tractors were 2 wheel drive.
If you are going to design a 4wd machine, it is my belief that all wheels should be the same size.
The added size affords added beef for drive components .

 

[rScotty]

Part of the problem in my mind is tractor manufacturers penchant of making the fronts way smaller than the rears. That was fine when tractors were 2 wheel drive.
If you are going to design a 4wd machine, it is my belief that all wheels should be the same size.
The added size affords added beef for drive components .

Yepper.... havng same size tires works fine mechanically. And the closer we get to same size front/rear, the better things become. So how did we ever get to such undersized front tires anyway? Sure a smaller tire up there helps with steering clearance, but does it need to be as small as it's gotten? Where's the advantage?

I wonder if tiny front wheels are just a styling holdover from the days before power steering became common, and are still with us because that's the way a tractor is supposed to look?

rScotty