fill tires or not?

[urbandeere2520]

Fill tires or not?

I say NOT... but that decision depends entirely on your intended use of the tractor.

I elected to NOT fill my tires because my primary use is to cut lawn grass and the extra weight of filled tires compacts the lawn.

When I'm using the FEL, I have an over-sized ballast box with 1,000 lbs of weight which I keep low to the ground or about 1'. I'll run out of hydraulic lift capacity well before the back-end gets light...so no problems so far.

This configuration works well for me and when I remove the FEL and ballast box, the tractor is light and helps preserve the delicate lawn grass when mowing. Secondary benefit is I don't need to worry about leaks or rim corrosion.

However if you plan to use your tractor primarily for FEL work, not mowing the lawn, then by all means fill the tires or use wheel weights.

Your mileage will vary.

 

[ricklman]

Just got my Kioti CK30HST w/FEL 40 hours ago and my dealer forgot to fill the tires before delivery. I have had more "brown alerts" than I care to think of when I'm using the FEL without the BH on the rear. Moving any load around our small mountains/large hills causes 1 rear tire to be airborne with any type of turn or uneven ground most of the time.

I'm taking her in for the 50 hour checkup next week and I'll know more after she gets her beet juice injections, but my dealer told me he would not use calcium. I'm really looking forward to the extra weight in the a** end.

 

[greg_g]

my dealer told me he would not use calcium.

Respect that dealer

//greg//

 

[Sawdustsmb]

Loaded tires as previously stated puts the weight out to the sides and down. I've seen skid steers tip up on their nose - never a tractor but they do tend to tip over on their side. Get the tires loaded.
Bob

 

[Wyobuckaroo]

I filled the turfs on my tractor with a mix of anti freeze and wind shield washer fluid. Blended to be safe for my winters. (45 gallon total) This blend is the best option for my uses, availability, cost, and maintenance.

Wish I had done it 2nd day I got the tractor.

Good luck

 

[fuseboxer]

Dealers rules. Unless you question safety and have an adversion to a ballast box. I put two 60lb weights on each tire and reversed 180 degrees the tire/rims to increase stability. Neighbor had some used ford weights that bolt up nice to my 4410 deere. I gave them a fresh coat of paint after an acid bath. I do not use it much and I have very few hills. My loads are not very heavy. A load of wood or a 1/2 yd of dirt. --Fuse

Any use suitcase weights around for a ballast box? They look good.

 

[meburdick]

Clearly, as you see from the variety of the posts, there is a certain amount of "it depends" in the answer.

I have a basically level lot and use my tractor for snowblowing in the winter. Since I only have Turf tires and want to avoid chains if possible, my rears are filled with used antifreeze. I get absolutely no appreciable "packing down" of the grass when mowing. In fact, the only time I get any sort of tire tracks or anything is when the ground is very wet from winter melt (I move about 800-1000lbs of firewood on pallets when it's cold enough to burn but warm enough for the ground to be thawed). And, that clears up pretty quickly.

You need to look at how, when, and where you use your tractor today, how that could change in the future, and decide what options make sense for you.

As far as adding weight, filled tires provide a much more stable weighting of the machine than what you get from a BB. True that there's a longer moment arm, but that is also always applying torque to the tractor (meaning that it's not just counteracting weight on the front but also trying to lift the front when you're not carrying - think in between fills / dumps of the bucket).

 

[buickanddeere]

Absolutely. Plus liquid ballast is a helluva lot cheaper than are wheel weights. Tire ballast is a primarily a traction measure, secondarily a counter-balance measure. Conversely, a ballast box primarily counters front weight - and only secondarily assists traction. It goes to placement versus center of gravity

//greg//

On a 2WD tractor, 750lbs of weight on te three point hitch will provide more traction than 750's of tire ballast.

 

[FunnelWeb]

Filling the tyres of your tractor can be an advantage, even if you don't have a FEL, because it lowers the tractor's centre of gravity. The lower centre of gravity makes the tractor much more stable if you operate in hill country.

The tractors we used on my parent's rather hilly farm all had their tyres filled. None of the tractors had front end loaders.

In Australia there aren't many places where you have to worry about stuff freezing, and the tractors I'm talking about had tubed tyres, so we just filled them with water. Works out much cheaper than wheel weights.

 

[thomas9n]

sounds like filling the tires is the ay to go. since my dealer won't do it should i take the tires off myself and take them somewhere? (where to take them?) or should i have someone come out to the house and do it?(who does that?) or can i do it myself?

 

[schweizer]

Knowing that my rear tires when filled w/ ballast are upwards of 700 lbs, I wouldn't be taking them off by myself....

 

[NHmitch]

This may be a helpful guide for you. I would fill them without hesitation, you will be so much safer. I have windshield washer fluid in mine, because it was a lot cheaper than beet juice, and calcium chloride will wreck your expensive rims.

Courtsey of:Comparing Types of Liquid Tire Ballast | OrangeTractorTalks

 

[hslogger]

Fill'em Fill'em fill'em. Rimguard is the newer technology and it won't eat the rims up like Calcium. I had Calcium in my old machines and in my newest one, just the other day I had rimguard installed. It added a little under a thousand pounds for 300 dollars at the local tire shop. I have an L4400 and it is tubeless.

 

[greg_g]

On a 2WD tractor, 750lbs of weight on te three point hitch will provide more traction than 750's of tire ballast.

I don't see how that's possible. Whether 2wd or 4wd, wheel and/or tire ballast is centered over the axle and directly above tire tread contact patch; where the rubber meets the road so to speak. And it doesn't move the center of gravity. As I stated, the purpose is for increased traction and improved lateral stability. The rearward position of a ballast box actually does shift the center of gravity, and is intended to relieve stress on the front axles during loader operation. The purpose is counterbalance and longitudinal stability.

//greg//

 

[greg_g]

sounds like filling the tires is the ay to go. since my dealer won't do it should i take the tires off myself and take them somewhere? (where to take them?) or should i have someone come out to the house and do it?(who does that?) or can i do it myself?

I take it you have no trailer? I didn't even consider taking mine off. Whereas I could manage to remove them and get them on the trailer (empty), I had no faith in my ability to get them off the trailer (filled) and over to the tractor. The fronts, no problem. But the rears? Just the Rimguard alone in each tire was well over 400 pounds. So I just put the tractor itself on my trailer, and hauled it to the RimGuard dealer. Then all I had to do when I got the tractor home, was drive it back off the trailer.

//greg//

 

[meburdick]

A couple of other things came to mind this morning...

1) Ask your dealer for specifics on Deere's recommendation to NOT fill the tires. I would be very interesting to see what sort of Bulletin or Documentation they produce (and you should ask for it) to show this.

2) You may very well want to consider whether or not buying a tractor from this dealer is what you ultimately want to do or not. Once you've bought the tractor and had the tires filled, this dealer is likely to get pretty irritated if you have any sort of warranty claim or request for them to do something that might be considered "good will". Your dealer makes up a large part of your overall satisfaction with your machine. And, if your dealer won't fill your tires, you're already starting the "relationship" off in a poor way.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Yes you need a better dealer, one that sells farm tractors not just glorified lawn mowers.
A truck and tractor tire repair service can send a truck to your yard and fill them there but it is like a wrecker call and not cheap. If you can get it trailord to a tire dealer that does Ag tires that's the cheapest. They don't even have to take the tire and rim off the tractor just drive it to the valve stem up position then support the axle on a jack. Then they let the air out and remove the valve from the stem and pump the beet juice (Rim-guard) through a hose with a nozzle tip that fits in the valve stem leaving enough space to let the displaced air out around the tip. Looks like a big hypodermic needle. When it's full to the stem level they screw the valve guts back in the stem and add air and your done. You could do it yourself but you'd want to rig up the right needle tip funnel and it would take all day to pour that many gallons through it.
I'm going with rim guard in mine as it is the safest thing. I wouldn't use toxic antifreeze for fear of a leak that the dog would lap up and poison him. Also I'm not afraid of calcium chloride. We use it on roads all the time to settle dust. It is a salt and causes corrosion but if you get a flat or leak from an older tractor that still has it in the tires just dilute it with a lot of water. It's the concentration level that makes it harmful.

 

[FunnelWeb]

And it doesn't move the center of gravity.

Filling the tyres adds more weight to the tractor closer to the ground. This in turn brings the centre of gravity of the tractor closer to the ground. The closer the centre of gravity is to the ground, the less tippy a tractor will be. This is particularly the case in hill country, even if the tractor doesn't have a FEL fitted.

 

[meburdick]

Filling the tyres adds more weight to the tractor closer to the ground. This in turn brings the centre of gravity of the tractor closer to the ground. The closer the centre of gravity is to the ground, the less tippy a tractor will be. This is particularly the case in hill country, even if the tractor doesn't have a FEL fitted.

I don't think it moves it very much though. It's equivalent to "unsprung weight" on cars, which has minimal effect.

 

[Elcid76]

Set the tires as WIDE as they can be before filling (it is a lot easier that way), I used rim-guard and could not be happier. I just looked for the "local" dealer, even though he was almost 60 miles away the job was reasonable and I could not be more pleased. I used the tractor for about a year before filling, there is no comparison. Set the tires wide and fill them.