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 | plots1
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 563 mo 
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2003-05-15 54924
made me a set of pallet forks, all I need now is a hyd top link .looked at one here close to home but the shaft had a bend in it , guy only wanted 5 dollars he said it could be fixed for 35 dollars as he had to do it before.I didn't get it , though i could get one that didn't need fixing for about that price.
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 | Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3034 Northern AL 
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2003-05-15 54931
You might be supprised I believe that a Hydraulic top link is more than that.
Good call on the used one though. I don't know of any one that has repaired on and had long term success. They are harded and straighening tend to weaken them. If not perfectly straight seal will wear abnormally and eventually leak. ....
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 | TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-05-16 54961
Straightening a shaft with a hydraulic press won't restore strength. The only way to restore the original strength of this kind of part is to rework it hot or cold, which is virtually impossible due to the hard-surface plating on most shafts. Even so, a reworked shaft probably wouldn't end up at the original diameter. The cylinder is essentially junk except for applications much lighter than the original use and it is priced accordingly.
At least around here, I'd expect used top-link cylinders to be pretty rare so maybe you have good luck if there's a choice. They do need to be the right length and have loop ends. Sleeves sometimes are available to size common sized loops to CAT I pin sizes and something like that might increase the choices among used cylinders.
Length is important. My top-link cylinder came as part of my 3ph forklift and it has CAT II loops supplied with sleeves. The cylinder is a bit long, which means I can roll the box way back on its rear cutter for compacting but I can't get very aggressive cuts. Works out well though, I compact with it a lot and I also avoid aggressive cuts since my traction is limited due to turf tires.
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 | DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2003-05-16 54980
Tom.... your comment about limited traction with your turf tires got me thinking. I would bet that if you could change to a more aggressive tire that you would get worse traction.
I have switched back and forth with both tractors and what I have found is that the ag tires will start spinning sooner(even on a gravel road) and when the do spin, instead of making a little skid like the turfs do, they dig a hole.
And they dig that hole faster than you can get your foot of the gas pedal.
I have left "chevrons" in my gravel drive just driving over it with R-1's; no work being done, just passing through leaves discernible ruts.
They are still the tire of choice for mud and wet pasture land, but a lousy choice for grading a gravel road. ....
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 | Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2003-05-16 54985
I agree with you Mark, I have always run turf's on all the 'light' (tractors, etc.) equipment, I recently got a Kubota with R4's on it for puttering around the house. It is HST not gear-drive so that may have an effect also, but I discovered in touching up the driveway and such that it has no where near the traction that the comparable unit had on turf's.
Unless your tires sink down into the surface you are trying to get traction from the big lugs (and the resulting lug face area) do nothing for you, in the case of a relatively firm surface, turf included, you need many small lugs to give you a little bite each resulting in superior traction. The fact that the rubber used to make turf's is a lot softer than that used to make R4's is probably alot to do with it also, especially in the cold when R4's are notoriously slippery.
Best of luck. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-05-17 55010
Yes, I believe it's true that turfs can have more traction than ags. Some of my box work is on new ground and ags probably would be an advantage. I doubt the tractor has the weight to sink lugs into compacted gravel drives so the turfs likely are better. When I cut down the grade on the drive last summer it probably would have been a toss-up. I don't think there's any contest on ice.
Actually, the 6' 750-lbs. box for my 24-hp tractor probably is the greater traction challenge but I like the greater width. The times I want a more aggressive cut are when working shallow excavations. When working grades, an aggressive cut fills the box too fast and leaves divots in the nice straight grade I'm trying to work. I tend to use the rear cutter for cutting down hillocks, and the cylinder length is about right for adjusting the rear cutter angle. The traction isn't quite enough to drag full boxes of gravel out of a pile but it will drag them as long as I'm not on 6" of loose gravel. Don't know if ags would do any better.
All in all, the box and turfs probably would be my set up of choice even if that's not what I already have. R4's might be of some interest to me due to their greater load ratings but I don't know how they'd compare to turfs on ice. I run minimum tire pressures during the winter to gain traction. I don't know if the same thing works with the stiffer R4's. R4's would jar my teeth on the road though.
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 | marklugo
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 281 Tifton, GA 
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2003-05-24 55489
Turfs reduce ground pressure per sq inch but not necesarily improve the tractive ability of a tire. Although not an engineer, I will step out on a limb with the saw between the tree and me. A properly inflated R-1 is superior in traction in 90 % of the cases. Recently there has ben much discussion about sliding down hills in turns. This is a charachteristic of turfs, not ags. Lets put this in perspective. Race cars run slick tires on dry pavement to get more contact with the ground to provide traction. Would this work in real world conditions? One any one really put slicks on their car to drive day to day? No, they would prefer the checkered or v type patterns provided by most modern radial tires. This provides better traction on wet, and loose surfaces. Well this applies in the areas of tractors as well. On hard surfaces, you would see some improvement in an equal sized turf in traction but on skiddable surfaces, the advantage is lost and T-1's loose their appeal. The main use of turf tires began on golf courses many eons ago to prevent breakage and permanent damage to the crowns of the plants where all the undifferentiated tissue is. It was not to improve traction. In fact many courses did and still do add chains at various times to improve traction. A few smart salesmen had a few extra tires to sell and put them on tractors and advertised them as turf specials. The idea caught on because nobody wanted to be left behind on the band wagon. Are there legitimate uses for turfs? Yes, but their broad application to anything with a diesel engine with a three point hitch has been well over done. Try to recall what real farmers use as a rule of thumb. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-05-25 55527
True enough MarkL. Turfs do reduce pressure per square inch but they also add more square inches. Ags on surfaces where the lugs don't sink in put higher pressure on the ground but there are fewer square inches in contact. Floatation tires are even more extreme than turfs and they don't have much traction at all. It probably would take an engineer to calculate coefficients of friction and those would be different for different surfaces.
I think the main thing is that the tires should be the best the match for the work that has to be done. A case for any type tire can be made and they'll all have problems in some jobs but they'll be different types of problems. Part of what tire works best probably is which sorts of problems an operator is used to dealing with.
I don't think there's any question that ags have far better traction on surfaces where the lugs sink in and that would apply to sliding down hills as well as plowing. I imagine farmers use ags because they do a lot of heavy draft work on soft ground and they don't drive on lawns much. They also are the ones that talk about tire chains for snow plowing.
I don't need chains myself although it's true that I mostly use a blower after the gravel freezes. I don't have a comparison but I believe my turfs are better than ags on ice. My box scraper is a bit oversized for the tractor and traction is only a minor problem on the packed drive. Wish I had a comparison I don't know if ags would be better or not. I've wished for ags sometimes but overall I think the work I have to do goes easiest with my turfs.
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 | AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144 
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2003-05-25 55545
Mark and Tom, you have both said things that are right. Turfs do spread the area and cause less pressure on the ground. Therefore, they damage grass much less than an AG tire. R1 tires work because they do have very high force on the small lug area causing it to sink into soft ground. Once that the lugs have dug in, friction is very high because the lugs are "meshed" with the soil like gearteeth.
Friction in engineering terms is defined as the weight on the wheel multiplied by the coefficient of friction of rubber to surface. In basic engineering terms, one might think that the friction would be the same for both tires since they are both rubber and should generate the same friction forces for a given weight, but on some surfaces, the turf will win. On smoother, hard surfaces the turf will have a larger contact patch that will hold the surface while the R1 lugs may bend and start to roll over leading to slippage. Turfs will be much like the "slick" analogy. Ag tires will win the race on soft soil where you are not worried about leaving tracks.
What do I use on my tractor?? R-4s. They do less damage to fragile soil and turf but still get plenty of traction in my desert soil. R1 tires can be very uncomfortable around here, because on hard ground, they will jar your teeth as the lugs hit the hardpan and cannot sink in. Driving with R4 tires is fairly comfortable even on pavement and they have never slipped for me on hilly desert terrain with some steep aroyos. I don't have much grass to worry about, but I can drive a straight track without leaving more than an imprint in the grass. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-05-26 55566
I remember some old discussions where people said that going from bias to radial tires improves traction a lot. I took a hop into the Firestone Ag tire page because I didn't know if ags and radials went together--they do. Firestone also claims their 20-some degree bars give 15% more traction than traditional 45-degree bars. That may be just advertising but seems like there's a bunch that can be learned about tires.
There also are radial versions of R4' it seems and I had thought that all R4's were bias tires. I was going to ask AC how the R4's did on side hills since I heard that the rigid side-walls of R4's may not flex enough to allow full width tread contact when on side hills. Guess you'd have to ask if they are radial R4's first.
Another old saw is that loaded tires gain traction from the weight but loose some from tread distortion, which leads to the notion that there may be an optimal loading for tires on a particular tractor. I suppose that old saw too may be irrelevant with radial tires. I think tractor pull tractors use rotating weights on the axles for loading but I'm not sure whether liquid loading cuts traction or takes power. I believe they do cut the lugs on ag tires down to gain traction, or maybe it's to keep from breaking them off.
This learning stuff just goes on and on. At least I already know that if I went out today after yesterday's rain to turn over my compost pit, then I'd wish I had ags. Just throwing some stuff out here and maybe I'll learn some more from the replies.
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| AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144
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2003-05-27 55709
I did not know that radials were available in Ag tires. Radials should really help when you need a more flexible sidewall for a better contact patch.
I do not know if my tires are radial or bias, but I suspect that they are bias ply since they are what came on the tractor. They are filled with Calcium/water. I will check and report back.
As far as side hills are concerned, I have not had any problems, but traction is not good with anything in my sandy desert soil. Tires without lugs don't do well at all because the top dry layer just slips away. The R4s dig in to a harder layer. The only time that I have slippage with the R4s is if I do not have enough counterweight on the rear when I am lifting a very heavy load with the FEL. Then the R4s get light and will slip somewhat.
Normally on hills I am driving either straight up or straight down and I always use 4WD because the soil is not stable. It is difficult to walk up or down these hills because the surface soil will slide down.
I have tried a number of tires on off-road racing vehicles and in general I would expect the radials to improve the grip and performance of turf tires. I also expect that the radial will do better on ice. The same flexibility that improves the grip of the turf tire is going to allow the lugs on an Ag tire to flex and slip, so I would probably want to see some radial ag tires in action before I would be convinced. Radial Ag tires should ride better on hard roads and pavement. But, until I am convinced to the contrary, I will stand by bias ply tires for R1 and R4.
For off road racing, we use radials for flexibility and lower the pressure to increase the footprint of the tire. The idea is that you keep the tire on top of the soil (like a turf tire). Increasing the footprint area lowers the pressure on the soil and causes less damage as well as allowing the tire to conform and grip rocks, slower cars, and other immovable objects. However, the guys that climb sand dunes use special paddle tires that have similarities to Ag tires. These paddle tires have to dig in to the soft sand and do not do well on hard surfaces. I think that most of the paddle tires are bias ply construction as the increased sidewall stiffness supports the paddles. There seem to be a lot of similarities to tractor tires.
I grew up in the Central US and we had to deal with different issues there including soft soil and mud. We never used anything on our tractors except R1 tires. We used a Farmall Cub for mowing and used "worn out" R1 tires for it. The lugs were short to almost non-existent and did not have sharp edges. I had never heard of turf tires then, but the results were the same. ....
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 | WillieH
Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 543 New England
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2003-05-28 55840
OK...so we have deviated abit from the topic, but here is my two cents worth -
Having had and still have sets of both, aggressive turfs and R4's on my oranges, I DO believe that it is mostly job related as to what one will benefit from the most. Here in New England, we have three seasons to contend with... Winter, Road Patch, and Mud season.
I have used my turfs for nearly 17 years plowing heavy wet snow and dealing with our winter "boiler plate". Only twice, did I feel the necessity to hand cuff my turfs with chains, though damn glad I did...then they came off again.
Then comes road patch season...if I had my R4's on at this time, I would be all over the place as I tried to dodge the holes. The turfs actually do handle much like a radial tire on an automobile does, soft and responsive.
Then...comes Mud season! This is when I put on the R4's. This year is especially bad as we had 4 inches of rain in one hour yesterday on top of an already over flowing water table. When I came back from the long weekend, my garden had started to green over, not with deere droppings,(sorry could'nt resist), but rather weeds and the like. I had not looked in the rain gage yet. I decided to till under the growth...dropped the front in the garden and down we went.
Over the axles and just about to the floor boards!
As long as I was in, might as well chew it up, went down about 1.5 feet, as I was now pushing the muck with the axles and forward / leading edge of my tires. I had the R4's on and glad I did...she just kept on pulling.
Had I had my aggressive turfs on, I would have had my truck out there as well pulling the orange out, as they would have wanted to float on me.
After this season is done, the R4's will be coming off and the turfs will ride again until next time.
Yes I have pictures, they kind of remind you of the fresh NH shots, only difference...I was able to drive out after every pass!
Willie H. ....
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