Moving road/flasher lights to ROPS

[Gary_in_Indiana]

I'm thinking of moving my factory red/amber lights from the outside of my ROPS to the top with some forward and rear facing work lights I'm adding there in a steel encasement and wondered if there were any real good reasons not to do that.

I know about making the ROPS even higher and the potential to hit even more branches by doing this and am happy with that trade off. My thinking is that with the steel box I'm building to put up there for the two front facing and two rear facing lights I may as well put these up there where they'll be safe, too. I'm even going to add an "alley light" to either side so I should be lit up well enough.

My only concern was whether there might be some reason not to put my factory red/amber lights up there, too. I never fold down the ROPS so they'd always be visible. Any thoughts?

 

[btolle]

The only thing I can think of if is you need to find out what your state law says the acceptable height of taillights is. Every state has a lower and upper height limit. If you were to get hit on a public road and they were higher than the law allows it might be a problem.

Bill Tolle

 

[aloha]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( My only concern was whether there might be some reason not to put my factory red/amber lights up there, too. )</font>
You are talking about adding 6-8 lights plus the steel box at the highest point of your tractor. The more stuff you have higher on your tractor, the higher your center of gravity becomes. (Therefore, in the interest of safety we should all strive to have a physique with a low center of gravity.)

 

[bczoom]

Gary,

I'd go for it.
Bill has a valid point on state laws, but not sure if/how they apply to tractors. To my knowledge, there isn't too many laws about tractor lights. Older tractors around here may not even have them (although they have a SMV on the rear). If you jump up into the 100HP+ range tractor, the lights on their fenders are about as tall as my ROPS.
Again, not sure if it applies to tractors, but to my knowledge it is not allowed to have a white light on a car pointing backwards unless the vehicle is in reverse.

For the encasement, are you going to have any kind of brush guard? Here's something I'm working on which is a pretty much no-cost item which may help. Brush guard

Brian

 

[markct]

the lights on my ford 8000 which is a bit over 100 hp are on the top corners of the cab, thats where they came from the factory, and at that point they are nearly 10 ft off the ground, so i dont think your lights would be too high mounting them up on the rollbar of a small tractor

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

<font color="blue"> "in the interest of safety we should all strive to have a physique with a low center of gravity" </font>

/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

<font color="blue"> "are you going to have any kind of brush guard?" </font>

Yes, I'm going to use some expanded steel mesh with a piano hinge at the top front, rear and sides so I'll have access to the lights to change bulbs, etc., when the time comes. I'm thinking I'll just use plastic wire ties to secure them in place at the bottom. I think that'll be cheaper and more practical than adding some kind of latch there. I'm thinking I may add some of the same material (expanded steel) to my other set of 'off road' lights, too (see attachment). /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif