Weights for beginners

[Cameron Smith]

FYI! A 55 gallon drum full of concrete weighs a bit over 1100 lbs. (7.5 gal per cubic ft., 153 # of conc. per cubic ft. A 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 pipe installed transversely a few inches above center height of the barrel (BEFORE filling it with concrete!) allows an appropriately sized steel rod to slide through your spee balls to allow it to be easily slid on or off for ballast. Check the capacity of your lift arms before you make something your tractor can't handle (it has been done). Scrap iron thrown in makes it heavier (added while pouring the concrete). Make sure the barrel ends up bottom heavy or you will wish you HAD! 800lbs on my Ford 1900, 1500lbs for my big tractors. A 35 gal drum comes out about 720 lbs. for smaller tractors.

 

[Hay Dude]

See my post #14 in this thread. I had the same concern but went with a tire sealant that works with liquid ballast and used non-toxic RV antifreeze.

I actually can’t use it, too much worry about a massive leak in crop fields or along roads, etc.

 

[amhicks21]

This would be my situation. No lawn. Probably bucket and/or grapple most of the time. Moving deadfall or thinned trees and branches.. some dirt work as well.. will have an RC, maybe a chipper.
Sounds like I need to learn more, too. Adding air is easy with a compressor. How do you get fluid into the tires? Any idea how much foam fill would run?

Thanks all for the good info!

To answer your question of how to get fluid in to the tires, they make a schrader valve to garden hose fitting with a little pressure relief valve button that you can find for about 12 bucks. from there, you can either use a little pump or if you dont mind the extra hassle you could gravity feed it in. you just take the weight off of the tire and let the air out. then occasionally stop pumping and press the relief valve to let the air thats being compressed out. how often you have the relieve the pressure depends on how much pressure your pump can produce. you'll put the valve stem at 12 o'clock and once you start getting fluid out of the relief valve instead of air you know you're finished.

 

[OregonCraig]

So my next question by a beginner for beginners...
We hear a lot about weight, more is better, less is better, tires, suitcases, front, back, etc.
Ultimately, weight is a balancing act using your tractor as the fulcrum. Pick up a heavy load with your FEL and no weight in back and your back wheels may come off the ground or worse. Add too much weight and you can increase stress on structure and will definitely spend more money on fuel and potentially do more damage as you sink deeper in soil.
So, that's what I think I know...experts, here are my questions...

How do I know how much weight to add?
What is the best way to add weight?
What ways should be avoided?
What else do you think us beginners need to know about weight?

Thanks!

In my case, my 3720 came with a separate manual for the 300CX loader. The minimum recommended ballast is filled rear tires, three wheel weights per side, and ~1100 pounds on the 3-point hitch. So, not just one type of ballast, but all three.
Hopefully your loader manual has recommendations for ballast.
I do have a dedicated mower, so I'm not concerned about the 3720 damaging the lawn.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

i would measure the distance from the front wheel contact patch with the ground, and the bucket mount. Then look up your max rated loader lift. Multiply those two together, and you have the moment/torque of the load around the front wheel. Multiply it by three to account for a dynamic load.

Then measure the track length from the front wheels to the rear wheels, and divide the moment/torque around the front wheel, by the track length, and you know how much weight you need on the rear wheels to balance the loader weight. So long as you add that much behind the rear wheels some where, you wont be able to load the bucket enough to roll the tractor forward.

 

[Torvy]

May need to enlist my engineer son to help with that.

 

[Doughknob]

i would measure the distance from the front wheel contact patch with the ground, and the bucket mount. Then look up your max rated loader lift. Multiply those two together, and you have the moment/torque of the load around the front wheel. Multiply it by three to account for a dynamic load.

Then measure the track length from the front wheels to the rear wheels, and divide the moment/torque around the front wheel, by the track length, and you know how much weight you need on the rear wheels to balance the loader weight. So long as you add that much behind the rear wheels some where, you wont be able to load the bucket enough to roll the tractor forward.

You forget that there is already a moment from the rear due to the existing weight of the tractor itself on the rear wheels. To know how much additional weight to add, you'd need to know weight on rear wheels as tractor sits with no external loads, and then subtract that from your last instruction there.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

The rear will have bout 60% of the weight of the tractor on it. But I would ignore it unless I was very close to a set of scales, and could get an accurate weight all the way around and total.


Read OregonCraig’s post about how much the manual says to add on his tractor. The load at the rear wheels before you add that much, doesn’t contribute much to the balance.