First try roading the tractor. Turns out I'm not a fan....

[MHarryE]

Your tractor seems to be working right. Not only do they soak up power at road speed, they suck up fuel. Our country is fairly flat but with some hills. My Kubota L6060, 60 hp hydro, will pull down from 16 mph on flat gravel to 10 mph on the one hill with which I must contend. Even my 170 HP M7 will read 100% power output with CVT dropping it down from 34 mph to mid-20s on that hill. Tractors are very low powered compared to cars and trucks on power to weight ratio, plus they are extremely inefficient in both power train and tires.

As for fuel, off road diesel from a filling station can be a problem because of low turnover rate. At times I am forced to go to the station to fill my portable tank (there is a 109 gallon legal limit on those tanks) if I miss the trucker who delivers to our farms. In Minnesota they charge sales tax on off-highway purchased at the pump even though there is no tax delivered to the farm. Sales tax is nearly equal to road tax on on-highway diesel. On-highway diesel has a higher turnover rate and therefore is fresher. I can tell this by the water block filter on my fuel trailer. It can plug in as few as 2 fills at the off-highway pump vs never need to replace if I get on-highway fuel.

 

[Alan W.]

My roading is about 1-1/2 miles to the church to do parking lots. The Ford is kept there all winter for smaller plowing with a rear scrape, an the Kubota is driven back and forth for plowable snows. SMV, 4-ways and yellow LED blinkers do the trick.
Fuel runs are with the Tahoe using one of those hitch insert carriers to keep the fuel out of the passenger compartment.

Thats what most of my road runs have been for also. Its 4 miles to the church.
It can be a very cold 4 miles too. Dad is 5 miles and I go there at times.

I just use my fuel cans to get off road diesel.
Luckily the station I get mine from sells a lot and its fresh.

 

[metalbender]

Not a fan of road travel either. Bought a tandem disc and three point cultivator from an older gent leaving the farm about three miles away. Decided to drive down to get the disc. The Massey 1742 gets up and moves right along, the highway seems so smooth in the truck. Different story in the tractor, good thing the seat has suspension. Picked up the cultivator with a trailer. The end.

 

[Shaneard]

I fill my tractor up a lot at the gas station near us. On road diesel and it's convenient, my wife and I own the store, it's right next to our house

 

[marcelPL]

Make sure you don't have 4WD engaged when roading the tractor.

May i ask why?
thx,
M.

 

[ptsg]

May i ask why?
thx,
M.

4WD will create binding on the drivetrain on hard surface like pavement and so on.

There is about 5% give or take, difference between the front and rear wheels. Front wheel will often spin faster than the rear to give that 4WD pulling in soft surfaces.

Adding to that, the binding by driving on hard surfaces will increase wear and tear on the front axle. This is often seen as broken pinion gears, stripped splined couplers, and so on. Most manufactures will have a splined coupler right after the front axle drive shaft comes out of the transmission case that can act as a mechanical fuse.

And the front tires will be completely ruined after a very short time.

 

[marcelPL]

And the front tires will be completely ruined after a very short time.

Ok thanks i didn't know. I just did a 2km drive, and already saw my front tires were worse than the day before

thx
M.

 

[SmallChange]

That's a good point about how powerful cars are relative to tractors. My smallish station wagon is 170 hp, which would be quite a big tractor.

I think of tractors as powerful, whereas what they really have isn't power as much as it is the ability to pull hard (though slow). Fair enough. That's what I wanted in the first place. That's why I have the extra weight. Much of what I do with it is ground engagement, and the struggle is to be able to develop great enough force.

I don't especially want to be able to work fast. I'm a lot safer if I take my time and keep thinking things through. And I'm not on the clock, not trying to turn a profit, just trying to get something done the way I want it done. I wouldn't make a good jet pilot, with all the signals to keep track of and the need for fast reflexes and fast thinking. When it comes to figuring things out, I'm pretty good, but when it comes to thinking fast, that's best left to others.

Years ago I did a lot of bicycling. A friend who raced bicycles tried to work with me to improve my speed, and we were riding back and forth on a long smooth horizontal private drive. I was right behind him to take advantage of his draft, and we were trying to get up to 30 mph. The best I could ever do was 27 mph, and only briefly. It was amazing how the speed would just suck the energy right out of me, like putting a vacuum cleaner on my aorta. Man, that is HARD, outputting a bit of force at such a high speed. Quite a lesson. I've been thinking of that since trying roading yesterday, how a steep spot on my driveway is entirely doable at around 1.5 mph with just a bit of audible drain on the engine, and yet trying to do it at 15 mph would require ten times the horsepower to have a similar drain on the engine. Which daydream just made my little CUT require a 250 hp engine.

4570Man says I didn't even get to the best part. I think I may have to just settle for his description of it, instead....

 

[SmallChange]

By the way, I did realize that engaging 4WD would have probably loaded up the drive train with strain, and maybe been hard on the tires too, and I didn't engage it. But I did wonder about one thing. The way I was doing it with 2WD, I would only have braking on the rear wheels, which is not so great either at anything like road speed. And once you need to hit the brakes, it's not as though you could mash it into 4WD on the fly (at least I don't think so, but in an emergency, who knows). I wound up figuring that rear braking only would probably be adequate as long as I was staying in gear. But it was a consideration.

 

[CobyRupert]

Unless you have something really heavy in the FEL, rear wheel (only) brakes on pavement are going to stop a tractor with a top speed of <20mph fine.
If everything is working properly, it’ll stop you fine pulling a load equal to the tractor’s weight too. And more.
Just lock both pedals together if you’re not practiced with pressing both at same time with one foot. You don’t want to take an unexpected turn and roll over.