I added beet juice to my tires - added about 900 lbs to the weight of the tractor so that is goodness all the way around.
I have to operate on slopes from time to time and when I do I creeeeeeeeeeeep. All it takes is a hidden rock on the uphill side, or a dip on the downhill side to change all the weight and balance. I hate operating on sidehills. I am tense the whole time.
Great advice to go slow...which I have followed bush hogging my steep hills for the past 12 years. IF you feel (sudden spike of fear) something happening to increase your side angle (the unseen uphill rock pops the uphill side of the tractor up, the unseen downhill erosion hole that wasn't there last year, or just a surprise increase in steepness) to decrease your side angle do two things. Turn down the hill immediately (so plan to be able to do this - as in avoid mowing along the bank right next to a pond), and once turning (nearly simultaneously) drop the FEL bucket (hopefully if won't have a load in it while mowing). The quick turn introduces a cetrifugal force that will (hopefully) right the tractor back onto all four wheels. You have to have some forward momentum to make a downhill turn possible.
Going sideways rather than up and down is preferable to me for a few reasons. Sideways avoids short sidehill turns. Turning around while on a hill to go back up the hill centrifugal force will act on the tractor. Additive to the sidehill angle of the hillside/tractor. I tried going uphill and then hogging in reverse, but that is uncomfortable for long.
Ensure your front and rear wheels are installed so they extend the tires outwards the furthest, with or without spacers. Most tractor rims are reversible.
I had 4" rear spacers installed before I dared to hog my hills. I bought them from Motorsport Tech in Reno, Nevada, fabricated of aircraft aluminum, and both were anodized black. I also spray painted them Kioti Charcoal Gray to further prevent possible corrosion from possible future dissimilar metal contact - bolts, nuts, washers, axle ends and rims. Checking their website just now I see BORA spacers advertised (they sound like mine), but I think in 2013 they custom shaped them from solid pieces of aluminum because no BORA logo (they had a bolt hole template for my Kioti DK 40SE already). Motorsport Tech provided quality bolts and nuts. A minor snag was despite the template the holes in the spacers for the bolts were just a tiny bit too small to pass them through. Fortunately a machine shop is close by and they carefully drilled out the holes for a perfect bolt pass though. I painted after the holes were enlarged to get a thin coat of paint into the holes - the boring had removed the anodizing inside the holes.
Loaded rear wheels. Mine were loaded at purchase with Rimguard like Robert's. If you plan on getting spacers and haven't loaded your rear wheels yet put the spacers on first. I couldn't handle removing and reinstalling 700 pound loaded rear tires so I had my dealership do it with their block and tackle equipment.
To the OP's question...I considered also adding front wheel spacers. As many have said front wheel spacers may do little to prevent a rollover because the axle design may allow for it to tilt, causing the center of gravity of the tractor's chassis (heavy engine) to move sideways in the wrong direction. I read that spacers (rear or front) also increase the downward bending force exerted on the axles. For the beefy rear axle it's a non-issue, but for the front it sounded risky. My front axles are already wide (less width than rear stock wheels), and they are full of oil so sealed, and with gearing inside. I didn't want to mess up designed geometry and increase center of front axle downward forces already being exerted.
In the good news category the roll over angle is surprisingly steeper than I thought. For a static situation where the tractor isn't moving and on level ground...with the help of a friend who loves trigonometry we played around with various rollover/point of no return heights for different vertical centers of gravity. Biggest variable is the FEL height and what you might have in it. With a heavy load in the FEL the CG moves forward and that is why one, or both, of the rear wheels will raise off the ground first (which can result in a rapid rollover WITH tractor chassis rotation around a front wheel - ungood!). Side horizontal CG we left the same at 36 inches - tractor's front to back centerline. Here are our theoretical results with my 4" spacers.
Disclaimer - I am not an engineer and these should be seen, as a movie pirate captain once said, "More like guidelines!". But not even that - just some math showing static rollover angles are pretty dang steep with low vertical CG's. Every potential rollover scenario will have its own variables.
Also...I have no experience about when an increasing side load on the "downhill" side's tires might break a wheel rim seal, suddenly resulting in air/fluid loss and a likely increasing of the tractor's side angle, both in the ungood category. I would think jacking a tractor up on one side and getting near 40 degrees would risk it. No way am I going to intentionally allow for a side angle more than 30 degrees. When I've gotten over 20 degrees the risk of the tractor sliding sideways on loose dirt or wet grass exists.
"The static sideways rollover angle for the Kioti DK40 Hydro FWD, with FEL positioned with an empty bucket parallel to the ground, and Tartar 6’ bush hog, 4” spacers and loaded rear tires is probably above 40 degrees. There are no markings to let an operator know where the vertical CG actually is so...best guess for any given situation. I pasted this in from another document.
"Center of Gravity dynamically varies when the rear implement and the FEL are attached. Here are a number of predicted static rollover angles based on a range of vertical height CG’s.
Vertical CG Predicted Static Rollover Angle
25 inches 57.20 degrees
31 inches 49.25 degrees
33 inches 47.50 degrees
36 inches 45.00 degrees
40 inches 41.98 degrees
46 inches 38.00 degrees
55 inches 33.20 degrees
...and, lastly, a really high, heavy FEL load's best vertical CG guess...and one where a fast rotational roll over would likely be catastrophic.
72 inches 26.50 degrees"
I'm a retired pilot and I'll be quite honest. I'm more afraid of a rollover, or other potential life-altering mishap, operating my tractor than I ever was of flying an airplane. For example...pondering buying a hydrostatic transmission versus a manual transmission the terrible vision of me, new to tractors, pointed downhill and having it somehow slip out of gear came to mind. My foot brake for the rear wheels is, literally, useless once the tractor has momentum going downhill. I envisioned my tractor hitting the pond at the bottom of my long hill at 70 mph. Hydrostatic therefore a no-brainer for me, but I do know manual tranny's are operated safely by experienced operators - my neighbors! I also am in 4WD on my hillsides so the hydrostatic transmission stops the front wheels too.
Rhino
