Tractor Sizing GUIDE: Shopping/Sizing A Tractor (Development version)

[MossRoad]

For most tractor tasks greater chassis weight is more important than tractor horsepower. This tractor fundamental is difficult for people new to tractors to comprehend. In sub-compact and compact tractor classes it takes a 50% increase in bare tractor weight before you notice a significant tractor capability increase. It takes a 100% increase in bare tractor weight to elicit MY-OH-MY!

Got any science to back those statements up? Any head-to-head comparisons?

 

[/pine]

...In sub-compact and compact tractor classes it takes a 50% increase in bare tractor weight before you notice a significant tractor capability increase....

Just shifting from 2 wheel to 4 wheel drive increases the capabilities of my tractor by about 100% IMO...
Just loading the rears added about 50% capability...

 

[MossRoad]

Just shifting from 2 wheel to 4 wheel drive increases the capabilities of my tractor by about 100% IMO...
Just loading the rears added about 50% capability...

Yep. The advent of 4wd in small tractors rendered a lot of larger tractors that were actually heavier obsolete. That's why I have trouble agreeing with the statements about weight all the time. I had an 8000# 2wd tractor. There are plenty of lighter 4wd tractors that could outwork it.

 

[Michael Aos]

I've seen the guidance of "figure out what you need, then buy one size larger" a few times now.

I wish I'd seen that BEFORE I purchased my BX2370. I would have purchased a B2601.

That said, adding rear ballast to the BX2370 has made a night-and-day difference.

I wish I had understood the importance sooner.

Buy once, cry once.
--

 

[jeff9366]

Just shifting from 2 wheel to 4 wheel drive increases the capabilities of my tractor by about 100% IMO...
Just loading the rears added about 50% capability...

More or less. Standard bare tractor weight is distributed 40% front/60% rear.

Harry Ferguson ascertained 40/60 weight distribution to be base-optimal for Three Point Hitch applications in diverse conditions. In 1938 when Ferguson shipped his two prototype tractors from England to Dearborn, Michigan to demonstrate his internationally patented Three Point Hitch to Henry Ford, the rear tires were ballasted. Ford licensed Ferguson's Three Pint Hitch to produce Ford 9N/2N/8N model tractors, slightly modified versions of Ferguson's prototypes.

I cannot think of a current model subcompact tractor without 4-WD. Almost all compact tractors are sold with 4-WD standard or as an option selected by most customers, I speculate 85%.

At my local Kubota dealer in FLAT Florida one exception is Kubota's L2501 model. My local Kubota dealer sells a fair proportion of sparely equipped L2501s exclusively for pasture mowing, without an FEL and without 4-WD.

I have tentatively made a couple revisions in Post #60.

I will consider any concise suggestion you wish to make. See Post #5.

 

[jeff9366]

Got any science to back those statements up? Any head-to-head comparisons?

No.

My opinion is based on owning a Deere 750, Kubota B3300SU, and a Kubota L3560 plus operating two 50-horsepower, 2-WD John Deere's, one a Deere/Georgia shuttle shift the second a Deere/India clutch and gear. A fairly diverse universe of tractors, in weights often discussed on this site.

I suppose the Nebraska state tractor tests would provide head-to-head comparisons but Nebraska data is seldom referenced here.

I am authoring a guide, not a treatise dealing formally and systematically with sizing tractors.

 

[jeff9366]

The advent of 4wd in small tractors rendered a lot of larger tractors that were actually heavier obsolete. That's why I have trouble agreeing with the statements about weight all the time. I had an 8000# 2wd tractor. There are plenty of lighter 4wd tractors that could outwork it.

Heavy 2-WD tractors consume more fuel than capable 4-WD tractors. Buyer only pays for 4-WD at time of tractor purchase. Fuel is a recurring expense. Manhandling five gallon fuel cans is a pain.

 

[Rock Crawler]

Re: GUIDE: Shopping/Sizing A Tractor (development version)

I can tell you this, I had a BX25D and put about 100 hard hours on it, all digging/excavation/rear blade work. It was a base of 1450 pounds I believe.

I now have a B2650 with a base weight of around 1850 pounds I believe. I've got just about 60 hours on it in the last 3.5 months doing similar work.

The difference in the ability to do work with the B2650 is immeasurably greater compared to the BX.

That 400 base weight increase in the B2650 elicits a massive wow factor, if that in and of itself is what one wishes to attribute this performance gain to...

Maybe it's the much bigger tires? The additional fluid fill weight? The heavier loader assembly? The combination of all of those things?

But on paper, a B2650 is a small increase in weight, but holy cow! It's in a different universe of work performance.

The doubled weight gain thing, it may hold some amount of truth. But I think that it is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

 

[jeff9366]

The ability to do work with the B2650 is immeasurably greater compared to the BX.

The doubled weight gain thing, it may hold some amount of truth. But I think that it is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

I hope to read another post when you have accumulated 1,000 engine hours of tractor experience, including some operating hours on a tractor that weighs at least 3,000 pounds bare, ballpark double weight of the BX25D.

"MY-OH-MY" may be elicited less frequently at seventy years of age.

 

[jeff9366]

I've seen the guidance of "figure out what you need, then buy one size larger" a few times now.

I wish I'd seen that BEFORE I purchased my BX2370. I would have purchased a B2601.

That said, adding rear ballast to the BX2370 has made a night-and-day difference.

I wish I had understood the importance of weight sooner.

THANK YOU. Consider yourself baptized.