Rear ballast

[TNhobbyfarmer]

I have a Kubota 3430, rear tires liquid filled. Is that enough rear ballast for general fel use?

 

[George2615]

I guess it depends on whether you're FEL use is moving lightweight mulch or stone. For most part time FEL work you should be fine. If doing a lot of FEL work you may want rear ballast to counteract some of the excess weight on the front axle. You'll find out how light the rear end gets with a full bucket of gravel and by how much the front tires squat.

 

[Fallon]

I have a Kubota 3430, rear tires liquid filled. Is that enough rear ballast for general fel use?

Nope.

Ballast does 2 things. Increase traction & to some degree stability if it's down low. Unload weight off the front axle.

Wheel ballast will increase traction, but won't unload the front axle. Think of a tractor like a giant teeter toter. Put something heavy on the rear & the front will want to come up. Put something heavy on the loader & the rear will want to lift. So heavy rear tires will prevent the rear from lifting, but leave lots of weight & stress on the front axle. The front axle is much lighter, complex & expensive than the rear axle, so you want to decrease the load on it as much as possible. Only 3pt ballast will accomplish that, not wheel ballast.

On my 3,500lbs (with loader & loaded tires) I had a bad experience due to lack of ballast. Was moving a 200lbs tops gate on my pallet forks on the loader. It was only a light gate so I didn't bother with rear ballast. Go down the hill to drop the gate against the back of the barn. Let off the go pedal & kept going. Jammed on brakes, kept going. Finally ended up with 2 square holes in the back of my barn. I'd left it in 2wd accidentally leaving me with only rear tires to brake & intentionally left rear ballast off killing rear traction. Either engaging 4wd or 3pt ballast would have saved me. But 4wd would have left most of the weight of the tractor, loader & anything on the loader sitting on the front axle. Front axles have lots of joints, bearings, seals & other expensive parts on them & I have read lots of posts of people with leaky front seals or smashed front bearings, especially Kubotas. I'd keep all the weight off the front axle & keep those problems at bay as much as possible.

 

[George2615]

Fallon give a much better explanation of what I said.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

"nope" x2.

 

[amhicks21]

If your tractor has the LA513 loader then you'll be fine without 3pt weight. If it has the LA723 and you expect to load it as heavy as it'll handle regularly and work on slopes then i'd go with a 3pt implement. Regardless of what kind of ballast you use, you'll always want to be in 4x4 on a slope. Even with the 1200lb implement i use mostly ive slid down a grade in 2 wheel. As far as the front axle goes, the bearings can break and the seals tend to leak. ive had it happen in a l3540 that i used to operate but they are suprisingly cheap and easy to fix if you dont pay a dealership to do it. I wouldnt expect to have issues unless you're moving hundreds if not thousands of tons of material though.

 

[gladehound]

I have a Kubota 3430, rear tires liquid filled. Is that enough rear ballast for general fel use?

It depends. For most jobs your better off with weight on the 3pt for the reasons described above. However, if plowing snow, 3pt weight will reduce your ability to steer. If pushing snow with the bucket in float, 3pt weight will make your front lift and reduce the amount that you can push.

As far as your front axle is concerned, some CUTS have beefy front axles and some don't. All of them will wear faster without 3pt balast. Some might actually fail on the spot especially if you hit a ditch with a heavy load in the FEL.

My tractor has loaded rears and feels very stable carrying half the FELs rated load. Beyond half I like to have something on the 3pt both for stability and to take some stress off the front axle.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

If almost anything in the front bucket, then no.

 

[s219]

I look at the loaded tires as enough to counteract the weight of the loader to keep the rear end from being bouncy when the loader is empty. As mentioned, it's not true ballast, and if it is barely counteracting the loader that means it's not helping for whatever you carry *in* the loader. I always add extra ballast when carrying heavy loads. Normally that means strapping on my box blade.

 

[rgr33]

When lifting heavy loads, I like to have at least as much rear ballast as the weight that I am lifting.

Light weight lifts are fine, the loaded tires are enough to handle that.