Wheel weights add stress to axles or bearing?

[Farmwithjunk]

Mornin Farm,
I think that statement pretty well sums it up IMHO !

'Mornin' Scott! My old 3000 Ford spent 30-1/2 years as my loader tractor when it finally needed to "go away" last winter. I had fluid in the rear tires, over 400 lbs of cast wheel weights ON EACH SIDE, and almost always a big ol' HEAVY home-made rear scraper blade I used to clean out the feed lot with. The poor tractor had almost as much weight strapped on its back as the tractor weighed. And it stayed on the job for all that time, and nearly 4000 hours on the clock. THAT is how a tractor should hold up to being used as a tractor.

I'm not advocating piling on the weights like that in most cases, but I stick with my opinion that a REAL tractor should be designed and built with enough integrity to handle being used like a tractor.

 

[3RRL]

...but on the way home, I got to thinking about it and am skeptical of his assessment. Unlike adding weight to the tractor frame, which will put more weight on the bearings, the entire weight of the wheel/tire assembly rests entirely on the ground and does not transmit to the axle and/or bearings. For this reason, my thinking is that at rest, there should be zero affect on any bearing or axle. In operation, I'm thinking that bearing load increase should be nil but inertia from the spinning tire may induce a slight increase in rotational stress on axle from trying to stop a larger mass from spinning, although I highly doubt that this extra amount of stress would be significant as most forms of automotive related stress is speed induced. 2mph, for all practical purposes is not fast.

What do you guys think?

I agree with your assessment completely.