Marlowe
Gold Member
When I first bought my little tractor I thought I'd made a mistake. It couldn't get out of it's own way if It had a load in the front bucket. It was, after all, only an eighteen hundred pound tractor with a FEL added. That makes for one front heavy little sucker. But just like any other piece of equipment we may own, I had to learn how to work it. I may not know tractors, but I'm learning.
I started adding weight to the rear end. My first stab at it was to slide a shaft in the three point hitch lift arms, and add weight to it. I totalled about three hundred and fifty pounds in there and it made a new tractor out of the little guy. That was fine untill I bought a box blade and needed to remove the weights to install the box. No problem, as long as the box blade was hanging in mid air, but soon as I dropped the blade, the wheels spun with the slightest load. 'Gotta find somewhere else to hang some weight', I thought.
Brainstorm. I drilled and bolted seventy five pounds to each rear wheel. That oughta do it, I hoped.
Nope. Still, when I dropped the box blade, the wheels spun with the slightest resistance.
So I added fifty pounds bolted to the rear hitch. That helped, but still the box blade was almost useless for anything other than a counterweight for the FEL.
Finally, last night, I filled the rear tires with liquid. I experimented with several methods of doing so before I came up with a working plan. It took a while, but was worth the effort.
Today I went to my lot to work on the foundation for my new house. I dug the foundation footers with a track hoe but had to leave for a business trip before I could clean up the residual clay that fell back into the ditches. As we could expect, monsoon season set in before I could get back to it. My footer ditches were filled with wet, heavy, sticky, mud. The kind you have to pry the shovel from the sucking action, then beat the mud off the shovel. My tractor was useless for this process, but I did need to rest now and then. So, I let the tractor work while I rested. I did need to try out the newly weighted rear tires, after all.
The place was a muddy mess, in general. Everything I did with the tractor was a challenge, but everything was a bit easier now. The proof, though, was when I dropped the box blade to drag. Worked like a champ. In fact, it worked so good I was able to rest up quite nicely from all that mud shoveling. I just set the RPM's around sixteen hundred and drove while I feathered the lift lever to level things off. Instead of digging holes, the rear wheels pulled without slipping.
Bottom line. Liquid filled rear tires make a big difference.
Tom
I started adding weight to the rear end. My first stab at it was to slide a shaft in the three point hitch lift arms, and add weight to it. I totalled about three hundred and fifty pounds in there and it made a new tractor out of the little guy. That was fine untill I bought a box blade and needed to remove the weights to install the box. No problem, as long as the box blade was hanging in mid air, but soon as I dropped the blade, the wheels spun with the slightest load. 'Gotta find somewhere else to hang some weight', I thought.
Brainstorm. I drilled and bolted seventy five pounds to each rear wheel. That oughta do it, I hoped.
Nope. Still, when I dropped the box blade, the wheels spun with the slightest resistance.
So I added fifty pounds bolted to the rear hitch. That helped, but still the box blade was almost useless for anything other than a counterweight for the FEL.
Finally, last night, I filled the rear tires with liquid. I experimented with several methods of doing so before I came up with a working plan. It took a while, but was worth the effort.
Today I went to my lot to work on the foundation for my new house. I dug the foundation footers with a track hoe but had to leave for a business trip before I could clean up the residual clay that fell back into the ditches. As we could expect, monsoon season set in before I could get back to it. My footer ditches were filled with wet, heavy, sticky, mud. The kind you have to pry the shovel from the sucking action, then beat the mud off the shovel. My tractor was useless for this process, but I did need to rest now and then. So, I let the tractor work while I rested. I did need to try out the newly weighted rear tires, after all.
The place was a muddy mess, in general. Everything I did with the tractor was a challenge, but everything was a bit easier now. The proof, though, was when I dropped the box blade to drag. Worked like a champ. In fact, it worked so good I was able to rest up quite nicely from all that mud shoveling. I just set the RPM's around sixteen hundred and drove while I feathered the lift lever to level things off. Instead of digging holes, the rear wheels pulled without slipping.
Bottom line. Liquid filled rear tires make a big difference.
Tom
