Ballast Tires Adding liquid ballast to tires. Is it a good idea?

[Soundguy]

I tend to agree with this. Unfortunately affordable wheel weights in this part of the world are only slightly more common than unicorns.

Depends what you want to do with the tractor though. I have a JD420 and 316, one with a blade and one with a FEL. Neither had weighted tires when I bought them. The unfilled/filled difference is the difference between not being able to dig and actually digging. Wheel weights helped but weren't as noticeable a difference as filling the tires. The 420 would not have needed filled tires if I left it as a lawn mower.

No idea if stability is improved. I've only been in one situation where I was concerned about turtling. After watching YouTube videos of tractors flipping I'm going to continue to operate like there is no safety margin.

Agreed.. wheel and axle weights here are cast from 99.9% pure ground up unicorns. Priced accordingly.

Water +ecosafe antifreeze is rather affordable however..

 

[GTM Terre Haute]

I've always had liquid ballast in my rear tractor tires. I've found it improves traction and enhances stability. My Kubota has approximately 70 gallons of Rimguard in each tire which adds 740# per tire. You can go to the Rimguard web site and they have tables that show how much weight would be added to each tire.

I thought the question was about the stability of a terramite, that has a narrow wheel base.

Terramites are prone to flipping over if you are not careful. They even have a sticker on tractor warning of that. To improve stability, one needs a lower center of gravity or wided wheel base. Can't see how liquid in tires does either. Don't see how you could put 740# of liquid in each rear tires either of the smaller T5C tires and Terramites tires are tubless.

Rear tire ballast will help keep the rear wheels on the ground when you have weight in front bucket. However, tire ballast doesn't remove weight on front wheels. To remove weight off the front wheels, you need rear ballast the same weight and the same distance behind the rear wheels as the loader is in front of the front wheels.

Neighbor uses front loader on his Massey to move large round bales of hay. He has ballast in tires. His front wheels go down in the muddy feed lot with a bale of hay and his rear wheels spin in the snow.

He put a 55 gallon drum full of concrete on the 3 pt hitch, rear ballast behind the rear wheels.

What I'm saying is rear ballast improves traction and transfers weight off front wheels. Something liquid in tires can't do. Not to mention it's a real pain repairing flats with ballast.