Test driving the new JD

[kenmbz]

Cool tractor, but no fender and rolling spikes would wake you up pretty fast. Hit a good side bump :-0

 

[deserteagle71]

Narrow front end, no roll over protection. Being from AG, I know multiple people who died from those.

I grew up on a Pennsylvania (hill country) farm in the 50s and 60s. Don't believe I ever saw a tractor with ROPS. Olivers, Farmall H and M, various John Deeres all with tricycle front ends but I don't recall any such carnage as you describe.

This is me driving the Oliver 70. Note the date on the photo, the steel wheels on the wagon and the "hayloader" hooked behind the wagon.

 

[oldnslo]

My brother had an old Farmall F20 on steel with lugs like in the original picture. Like Lou said pretty poor traction and genuine Teddy Roosevelt rough rider.

 

[LouNY]

My first thought was "I wonder how many people that thing killed". But that's a really cool old tractor.

You think it's bad just looking at it,
wonder what you'll think if you figure out how to start that thing.

 

[deserteagle71]

Here's an old Oliver, now yard art for one of my neighbors, with the same type of wheels. Photo take last December.

 

[Thomas]

Remember steel wheel on our Farmall H,just had to be extra careful on ice tho.

 

[oosik]

Even the neighbor didn't know the brand. Luckily - I got a hazy picture of the front. There it is - on the top of the radiator. Whoa - first I best resize. It's a Fordson - model unknown.

 

[Oaktree]

Narrow front end, no roll over protection. Being from AG, I know multiple people who died from those.

Add to that, seat looks like it would be pretty easy to fall out of, no place to brace when steering at slow speeds (and I'd bet that didn't steer easily) and that flywheel (?) next to where your left foot would go.

 

[LouNY]

Being AG I grew up on narrow front end row crop tractors,
and I knew hundreds of others who did and none died because of the narrow front end,
or a flywheel near their foot, and I don't know of any that died simply because of the steel wheels.
Did a few die because they didn't have a ROPS possibly.
Looking back most actual tractor fatalities were a result of too big of a load,
too steep of a hill, too high of a speed.
Many times too much load, too steep of a hill resulted in too high of a speed.
The narrow front end was only minutely more likely to roll then the old wide fronts.
Much of the time these smaller row crop tractors were being operated by 9-10 year old kids.
And somehow most of us made it too maturity.

 

[bcp]

I grew up in and lived many years a flat, row crop farming area. Tricycle tractors far outnumbered others. I never heard of a rollover due to that.

Bruce