Tire ?s on a 4490

[nitram148]

Hello, I have been looking at a neighbors 4490 now for a while. One of the questions I have is about the tires. They are all older, weather cracked and mismatched. It currently has 18.4r34 with duals.

On some of the older 2470s they only have on single wide tire. I really like the look of this, but you don't see it on many of the newer tractors. So my questions are:
1. Is there any benefit of duals over a single wide tire for traction? I will not need them for row crop with this tractor, just for pulling tillage equipment.
2. Will a wide single hurt the steering/axles anyway on a 4490?
3. If all 8 tires need to be replace, would 4 wide singles be cheaper? I know what the 18.4s cost, not the wide ones.
4. If I went back with 8 duals, would there be any problems jumping up to a 38 inch rim and tire?

Thanks in advance for the info guys.
Martin
 

[4435]

I have a seasoned 4490 with 18.4-38 bias duals. Keep in mind if changing tire size these are designed to run in the field in third gear. You have to size your tillage equipment accordingly. Second gear is way skinnier than third and to much hard work in second will eat the gear and output shaft up. I caught mine before it spun out.
Can't tell you the price of singles but I would want something "here" on the order of 24.5-32.
The nice thing about duals is if you run a deer horn thru one of them you can usually limp it home.
Keeping your wheel spacing narrow as possible also saves the steering trunnions. My two cents Pre-inflation. Tom
 

[Paul A Young]

We had a 2470 years ago with 23.1x30's on it and I hated
them!!! The wide singles when under hard pull and slipping
would tend to want to bounce. Also if ground got a little slick
they would slip very easy. The whole time we had it we all
wished it had duals. I think that for the horsepower you have 8
new 18.4x34's would be well suited for the tractor. The price of
big singles would not be any savings either. My 2 cents.
 

[jon f mn]

Had an uncle that had a 2870 with 30.5/32's on it. He liked it, but he had a lot of mud problems. He lived east of Thief River falls mn. It's FLAT there and rains a lot and they constantly had to fight mud. He said that the singles wouldn't ball up with mud and plug the grips so they would work better in the mud. Duals would fill up between with mud and you would end up with slicks and no traction. I don't think they would pull as much in the dry tho. Later my cousin, his son, bought a 4690 and had it changed to 30.5's as well. They liked them a lot.
 

[nitram148]

Thanks for the information guys. I am in western Kansas, flat and dry. I was hoping there might be a benefit to large singles, but it doesn't really look like it unless you are really wet. And after researching tire prices, It looks like it would twice as much for the wide singles compared to duals (5200 per corner vs 1600x2 per corner). So that pretty well settles it for me. I like the looks of the singles, but not enough to pay that much.

Thanks again,
Martin