Tires Fill Tires or Add Weight?

[art]

Yep, that's steep. The dealer filled my tires for free. Adds a total of 800 pounds. That's $0.00 per pound.

I'd doubt it! You paid some where but it's all right if you think you got them filled for nothing.

 

[Z-Michigan]

Wouldn't some kind of water tank make sense?

jake (checking my spelling closely)

I was thinking the same thing. I see N80's reply about tieing up the 3ph, but why not have a liquid ballast tank mounted somewhere else, like inboard of the fenders?

Some of the local farmers have these liquid tanks at the front end (front bumper) of their row crop tractors. As you may know, for pulling it's often useful to have weight in front instead of rear to keep the front from lifting up. I don't know for sure what the tanks are for, but they look too small and in the wrong place for sprayer tanks, so I can only guess they are a ballast tank. They look basically homemade, but it seems like a good idea to me. Oh yeah, companies that make those row crop tractors will sell you suitcase weights for the front end, but I am guessing the ballast tank is cheaper and more flexible.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

I was thinking the same thing. I see N80's reply about tieing up the 3ph, but why not have a liquid ballast tank mounted somewhere else, like inboard of the fenders?

Some of the local farmers have these liquid tanks at the front end (front bumper) of their row crop tractors. As you may know, for pulling it's often useful to have weight in front instead of rear to keep the front from lifting up. I don't know for sure what the tanks are for, but they look too small and in the wrong place for sprayer tanks, so I can only guess they are a ballast tank. They look basically homemade, but it seems like a good idea to me. Oh yeah, companies that make those row crop tractors will sell you suitcase weights for the front end, but I am guessing the ballast tank is cheaper and more flexible.

Those front tanks may possibly be auxilary fuel tanks. Fairly common practice, especially on tractors that spend long days in the field.

 

[m7040]

For loader work it is important to have enough weight in the back as well as behind the rear wheels to offset weigth and wear on the front wheels. To be able to use the bucket to fill up from solid ground you need traction that only weights can provide. I started with disk wheels in the rear and went to CI hubs with filled tires and then mounted a 2000 lbs ballast box on the three point and now I am going to add additional CI wheel weights. Also I have set the wheel out to gain additional stability

 

[Soundguy]

As moutainview said.. not always can you just let your balalst pee out on the ground. if it is cacl.. you will kill grass.. if it is rimguard.. you want to save it because it is expensive. If the tubes popped.. it won't pee out real well.. though certainly some will.

I've changed rear tires as large as i could get flipped over by myself. I've changed a few that were on their side and too big to pick without using mechanical advantage.. sure is no fun.. and ain't fast by yourself either. All it takes is practice.

At work.. we have plenty of industrial equipment that have tires way bigger than agg applications. if we call a tire service.. they only ever send one man. Using his tools and the hoist on his truck.. I've never seent he local tire guy NOT be able to change a tire byhimself.. including some where the rubber must have weight near a ton, and with center.. probably another thousand... enough to make his truck squatt when he stood it up. ( I'm glad I'm not him.. I hate tire work! in fact.. anything other than fronts.. I -usually- hire out now.. unless I got the casing and tube in the farm and I'm pinched for time.)

I guess my point about the balalst is as much money and hassle as it is time.. not that a wet tire is specifically harder.. just more to think about.. and that many 'wet' tires are tube tires..and by default.. plugging a tube tire is / can be more work than a tubeless.. etc.

Soundguy

If you can completely dismount and remount a rear tire on a full size Ag tractor by yourself, well, you're three times the man than me, my farmer friend and his farmer buddy. My hats off to you. I've BTDT and the three of us struggled with this thing and two of the three of us knew what they were doing.

But your point is well taken, and its my point too, mounting and remounting a tire by hand is hard. A little harder if you have to deal with the fluid, but hardly a reason not to use fluid.



I don't follow this stuff about storage, pumps, removal time.....pop the valve, out it comes. Done. Maybe you are neater than we were.



Hey, no problem. Some have it and some don't. We just don't have it I guess. Those two tires kicked our behinds. Three of us. If you can do it by yourself, again, my hats off to ya. You da man! But again (and again and again) my point is that its a hard job whether you are one super guy or three stooges. The fluid doesn't, and didn't (in our case) add anything to that difficulty.

 

[N80]

I'd doubt it! You paid some where but it's all right if you think you got them filled for nothing.

Sure, you pay for everything. I get it. But considering that I got the best price on a 4wd L4400 with FEL that I've seen anywhere, at any time, ever, I think it probably came out in the wash.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

George (and the rest of you knuckeheads), How about when you put a tractor on a trailer? I don't think I want another thousand pounds...
Jake

Well Jake, everybody doesn't move their tractors, so being able to put it on a trailer is not even a factor. And besides that some of us have trailers that can carry a bit more than the tractor with a few thousand pounds of extra ballast. Our tilt bed can carry our D6, do you think that I worried about an extra 2600lbs of ballast when I ballasted my Mahindra? Honestly, my only consideration was to make it as heavy as possible. Now I have no intentions of moving my Mahindra, But I can if need be. Now I'm sure that some others are like me and can get about anything moved and others have trailers just for their particular machine and yet most don't have a trailer at all and have no intentions of moving their tractor ever. As far as you not wanting another 1000lbs when moving your tractor, fine don't add any extra weight then, that's up to you to have less pulling power.

 

[art]

Sure, you pay for everything. I get it. But considering that I got the best price on a 4wd L4400 with FEL that I've seen anywhere, at any time, ever, I think it probably came out in the wash.

As long as you feel you did right, that's the most important part!

 

[art]

Some good points have been brought up about filling tires. Calcium does kill! Rim guard does cost about the same as the cast weight. The bulk of the filled tires are just that, no tubes. If you hit a solid dead furrow you stand to loose most of it in that tire.

It still goes back to what you feel is needed but if at all possible to start with the cast and then move on. You can always trade the cast for filled!

 

[SkunkWerX]

WOW! I love this place. Thanks for all the info. Since my only current need for weight is heavy FEL work I guess I'll build a 3pt weight.

PERFECT!!
A perfect example, that is, of analyzing an intended use, and applying a simple, yet effective, solution.

There are trade-offs and Pros and Cons to all of the various weighting methods. Each task/job/chore may dictate one method or the other or a even a combination.

In my most recent case, I needed weight for traction while plowing snow with my small 4WD. Loading my rear tires with liquid would give a lot of weight and would work, However, in the spring, summer and fall I just don't need the liquid in there. So, I looked at my situational needs. Hanging weight off of my 3PH would be easy, give more rear weight, but would tend to lighten the front end and that wasn't the optimum , at least in my mind. I like the traction i get with the front tires firmly planted and keeping stable steering helps too.
So, it looks like I need to keep the existing tractor's weight on the front end and need to increase weight on the rears (mostly because that is where 75% of my rubber touches the ground). I chose wheel weights and am adding some barbell discs to the drawbar/pin hitch area, which is fairly close to the rear axle to avoid excessive front-end lift.
I'll bolt-up the wheel weights in November and remove them in late March. Done. Don't need them for mowing. I'll install the 25# discs on the rear hitch area only when it snows. They install and remove very easily. They block the PTO, but, i don't use the PTO when plowing, so, no conflict there.

In closing,
This long winded explanation of my personal needs was not intended to convince anyone my method is better/cheaper/more effective than anyone else's.
It was an example of the type of thought process each task dictates, to find the optimum weight set-up for the chosen task at hand, whether they be 100% of the time, or seasonal, or even, in the case of a 3PH ballast box, per a single usage.

The intended use and desired effect helps deteremine the optimum solution.