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Steve284
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1
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2006-08-10          133180

I’d appreciate some advice on best tire pressures to maintain for my recently acquired B-2400, equipped with FEL and MMM. The ground around my place is pretty rocky and hard-packed, not soft and muddy. According to the owner’s manual specs, the front tires (23 x 8.5-12, R4) require 22 psi and the rear tires (12-16.5, R4) require 18 psi. The rear now has liquid ballast installed. With ballast, should I still try to maintain 18 psi in those rear tires or should they be changed to a different psi level? The manual also says to keep the front tires at “maximum pressure if using a FEL”. Does that mean keeping them at the full rated psi level marked on the side of the tire rather than at 22 psi?

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12251hd
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 37 VA & OH
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2006-08-10          133185

Steve, recommend you go with the Owner's Manual pressure, especially for the front tires. Any less pressure in the fronts could cause stability problems using the FEL. Good luck. Dave/ ....

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Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2006-08-10          133187

Steve, it depends on what you are using your tractor for and there is no absolute to it! Indusrial or R-4 tires have a very rugged side wall and often there are complaints of rough ride from them. That tells me that often they are not loaded enough to ride comfortably for the air pressure. The recommended pressure often is higher then normal daily work needs unless it is loader and three point hitch work. For normal home owner duties like just mowing you can cut the air pressures in about half without any trouble and not hurt your tire life and improve your ride. When you go for loader duties you might want to raise the front pressure some. ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2006-08-11          133192

Steve, most of our fleet now sits on R4's for half the year, Art's comments about ride quality are right on the money. After taking off the turf's for the winter the guys all comment about how harsh the ride is again.

On another point, why would you have loaded R4's for cutting grass? Surely a 3pth ballast box would be a better option for turf work.

Enquiring minds .....

Best of luck. ....

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WhitleyStu
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 27 Northeast Indiana
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2006-08-11          133211

“For normal home owner duties like just mowing you can cut the air pressures in about half without any trouble and not hurt your tire life and improve your ride.”

Art,
As to your above statement, I just checked the tire pressure on my BX this week and set them at the spec in the owner’s manual (17 psi for the rear & 25 psi for the front). I have R1s and now that I am done with most of the landscaping chores which involved FEL and tiller work I am now just mowing our 3 acres. I have been rather dissatisfied with the ride quality during 3 hours of mowing on a new lawn which leaves me a little sore. Do you think 10 psi for the rear and 15 for the front is OK for mowing? BTW, I have had no problems with the R1s on the new grass. They are doing just fine and I have no reason to go to trufs for the summer as I had once thought.
Stu
....

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kthompson
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 5275 South Carolina
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2006-08-11          133217

I have a small Kubota with the R 4's and it is used a good bit with either a RFM or rough cut mower. The best I can guess it was with 10 or lower PSI that a rear tire broke loose from a rim and thus dropped the tractor within seconds. I was not around the tractor when this happened but it was driven off of a bank about 1 foot high and hit on the side of the tire.

So, be sure to keep a check on those low air pressures in tires as if it drops any, it just may come loose. My tires are tubeless.

....

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DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2006-08-11          133219

I don't think the BX uses a true R-4 tire. The R-4's on the larger models were designed for 7000+ pound skid steers and that is why the ride is so terrible when mounted on a 1400 pound CUT.

I too have had an R-4 tire come off the rim due to low pressure. It takes tire shop equipment to get those puppies back in place.

On my 4115 I found I couldn't get the pressure low enough to get any significant improvement in the ride. As a result I just changed to a different tire. If I had to go back to R-4's I would most definitely put tubes in them and run about 5-8 PSI.

On my BX I found the real culprit for the "active" ride had more to do with the small size of the tires reacting to every rock and twig I encountered.

Lowering the pressure on the BX tires will help somewhat. Forget the pounds and just let air out until the tread lies flat on a hard surface and there is a little bulge in the sidewall.

Do this with the equipment you are going to use in place and you will get the best ride possible given the small tires you have. ....

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Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2006-08-12          133233

I find that with resonable operation that people have no trouble although tubing would be best. I've had garden tractors down to three and four pounds of air, ag tractor tires at five and six being tubeless but to be sure that they don't blow the bead a tube would be best. A tire should run with a flat foot print on level ground or checking on a driveway after driving on dirt you can tell from the print. The manufacturers give the max for the people who load these tractors and work them all day carring heavy or all the load the tractor can. The perfect weight and pressure is set by the owner and what they are going to do and are most often far less then the maximum pressure. ....

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rgpbeme
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 55 Eureka Springs AR
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2006-08-29          133796

On my B7200 I have the ag. tires When I set the rear tires to spec. only about the center half of the tire touches the ground.
I was woundering if I should let the air out till the tire was touching the same all the way across ....

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DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2006-08-29          133797

Ag's are a different critter altogether.

I don't think they will lay the tread down flat, until they come off the rim, especially on a tractor as light as a CUT.

Ag tires work under the assumption that the lugs are buried in the soil and the tire is actually rolling on its carcass.

In fact, if your tractor is a 4wd, the tires are matched fore and aft by the circumference of the tire carcasses, excluding the lugs.

Bottom line: I think that there is very little you can do to either increase or decrease the traction of Ag tires on a small tractor by manipulating the air pressure.

....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2006-08-30          133802

As was stated, Ag tires are very different from either R4's or Turf tires.

The theory is that it's the lug itself that makes the traction, and the softer the soil, the further down it settles into the ground, the more the lugs bite in, the more traction you get. In theory anyways!! LOL.

The reality of it seems to be, if spec'ed tire pressures don't give you adequate traction you have one or both of the following problems;

1) insufficient ballasting allowing tire spin,

2) incorrect tires for the application or conditions.

This is a problem we have been having for some time now, for years we ran turf tires all year round, including for snow removal, the tires didn't last as long as R4's, but gave superior traction and performance. The savings in time more than offset the expense of the tires.

Most of our clients now insist on us running R4's, they seem to be lasting only about as long as the turfs did since they spin so much more.

Best of luck. ....

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Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2006-08-30          133803

Some of the older ag tires for small tractors are rounded but I'd still not be running them at the maximum inflation rate. They should have a little squat and you'd still have over half the tread on the ground. Are you carrying that much weight on the three point hitch all the time? ....

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earthwrks
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 3853 Home Office in Flat Rock, Michigan
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2006-08-30          133820

Murf you say your clients want you to use R-4's. Why do do they have a say? Also, have you tried tires like wht you'd see on a motor grader or Cat 2-3 yard front loader? The lugs are very deep (1" to 1-1/2"), shaped like a rounded-off, square "pad." They are were used a lot here on the Gulf cleaning up and wear very well on pavement as well as some mud. They're not good for over-the-tire tracks though soince the tracks can't bite into the offset pads. ....

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Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999
Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2006-08-30          133824

EW, it's a sort of convoluted process, but the 'clients' I'm talking about are municipalities that we contract to for snow removal for sidewalks and such.

Thus the units you see in my picture # 6.

In order to meet "minimum equipment standards" as laid out in the bid forms, the machines MUST be CUT's, equipped with HST, R4's and a few other minor things, remotes, etc. Without this meeting this list of minimum spec's you cannot even bid on, let alone win a contract.

Our problems are not with the tread design, per se, but that the rubber used in an R4 (or those that you spoke of and all "industrial tread" tires) is very hard to prevent them being torn up by rough ground. Unfortunately in the winter the already hard rubber is like marble and is so slippery that the tires spin like they're on ice, and since we cannot run chains or studs (which would chew up the very sidewalks were clearing) the only thing we can do is lay down an inordinate amount of sand (which also grinds the tires down) and spin happily along.

Best of luck. ....

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