Wheels and safety

I am concerned about safety while I mow my hills. I have a 1943 H trike and was wondering how far wide I can safely spread the back tires. Will that help stability or do I need the wide front end too.

Thanks for all your experience and help..

When I changed over to 30" rows and had to move everthing in to a 60" center, I worried the wind was gonna blow the tractors over just setting in the yard. :>)

Allan

I watch guys around here pulling couple of large grain wagons. You'll see them coming off a field in 4 wheel drive, making a 90 degree turn onto a gravel side road. One can see the outside rear chewing gravel on road, and can further imagine back wagon still being on soft soil, those front wheels are pulling. That could flip one of those big tractors so fast, to the operator inside it would be just like a slam dunk.

I use to own a Deere froestry skidder and those were on 84" wheel tread. When you loaded them up with 60-70 foot spruce that quite often put as mus as 5 ton of weight on the rear wheels, held 4' off ground by logging arch, and hanging in cables. You have to be awfully careful making turns, and any turn over 45 degrees is an absolute nono. The draft load of those long trees, will just flip you on your side. I've never had it happen, but I saw it happen one day. Man did the operator get one pounding even in a ROPS with seat belt on. He hit the ground so hard, you'd swear machine had been dropped from 50' up. Again, the front wheels keep pulling. I can see much the same thing with the tractor if those grain wagon fetch up solid.

Wide front will add very little to your actual stability. It may give you more sence of srcurity than actual safety. There is a very wee bit of added security with the tipping pivot point of front end being at the wide front axle, versus being at ground level with narrow front. That is much smaller than most folks believe. In an actual roll over with a wide front tractor, by the time the front axle pivot strikes it's stop, your gone anyhow.

I farmed a number of years with 3 narrow front, and 3 wide front Farmalls. Never had wheel tread less than 72" centers, and all were balasted. I don't ever remember going back to shed to get a wide front tractor as a result of hills being to steep for the narrow front.

I can tell you, if you put a wide front on that H, you will find it very clumsey, not near as manuverable as it is today. Sharp turnig wide fronts, never happened until the days of 04-06 series tracrors.