Wheel spacing.

[Tea4me]

I've been wanting to adjust my rear R4 wheels on my 1758 to widen my stance for hills and such. Like to do this asap cause I'm gonna get them filled soon. When doing this, the front wheels won't be near in line with the rears, even though they really aren't now being in stock form.

My question is, is it possible to just switch the fronts from left to right and vise versa? Obviously it doesn't add much if any to stability but will be within the rear tracks. It's not like I'm adding wheel spacers so the pressure on the bearings will be close to the same.?.

 

[Sysop]

If you have a loader, it is not advised. Spacing the front wheels out farther changes the geometry on the steering knuckles and produces a lot of load on the knuckles that they were not designed to endure. This is guaranteed to cause premature failure, with light use that may be ten years rather than fifty. With a loader, premature is generally pretty quick.

 

[rjmack]

I wouldn't mind having pretty well one of everything when it comes to implements, but have no real interest in putting in wheel spacers.

axle/bearing strain issues aside, I have trees and tight spots where a wider tractor really wouldn't be an improvement.

 

[Tea4me]

I am not talking about spacers. Just flopping wheels around for different offsets. I agree that spacers would be a no no.

 

[motownbrowne]

It's not generally advised, especially if you're doing anything with the loader that's already putting stress on the tractor, such as heavy lifting, traveling long distance with a load in the bucket, or using the loader without 3 point ballast.

That said, it's your call. Depending on how much they would be moved out, I'd probably try it on my machine without worrying too much.

 

[JWR]

If you have a loader, it is not advised. Spacing the front wheels out farther changes the geometry on the steering knuckles and produces a lot of load on the knuckles that they were not designed to endure. This is guaranteed to cause premature failure, with light use that may be ten years rather than fifty. With a loader, premature is generally pretty quick.

I disagree. The wider the better, more important in the rear than front. You are in no danger of over stressing anything by setting your wheels out. If it is an allowed/described set of positions in your manual (which I'm sure it is) the whole thing was designed to withstand the forces the loader is capable of putting on it. Steering knuckles are rarely if ever an issue and no reason to worry about them. The only added load on them is when you decide to steer hard right or left while carrying max load in the loader. Any tractor with FEL & front wheels stuck in mud while carrying a heavy FEL load may get restricted where you cannot even turn the front wheels. Even in those worst cases the limits are obvious to you and the last thing you need to worry about is steering knuckles.