hitch position?????

[yellow is good]

can some long time puller tell me what works the best having your hitch close to the rear axle or out to the limit our rules here are 20 in. high;; 36in. from center of rear axle . stock tractor (56 hp Minnie Moline ), has been very competitive in 6000 and 7000 lbs classes just looking for a little more !! has never lifted the front end ! spins out most of the time thanks ( yellow)

 

[Rwolfejr]

Think of your hitch point as a lever arm and yor rear wheels being the fulcrum or pivot point. The further back you are the more lverage you will have to try to pick the front up. The higher you are the more downward pull and same results... the more it'll try to lift the front. The advantage of higher and further back is the weight of the sled will act like weight being added to your rear wheels and give you better traction. A slight lift of the front does the same in that you've shifted or transferred some of your front weight to the rear and added yet more weight for traction. Just have to watch you don't over do it. I use wheelie bars to play it safe. The bars also make a nice step to climb up on the tractor.

 

[263 build]

36 in. is waaay to far back. that's double any rules i've heard of. the downward pull will change drasticly if pulling from in front or behind the axel. if at all possible i wouldn't pull from the draw bar. that will change balance if attached at center of tractor. if you get to much down pressure from the sled a stock motor will run out of power. i'm set up 19-20 in. high 18 in. from center of axel with my hitch attached about 3 in. in front of axel. very balanced for me. i can't picture a mini mo hich in my head though. so maybe i'm way off.

 

[mEl]

Keep the drawbar as short as the rules allow and find some other way to get the front right, the idea is to carry the weight on the front of the pan up as long as possible, looking at the geometry involved the closer the tires are to the pan the more down pull you have. We never change hitch length, we can go 18in. or 24in.Our classes allow 20 up 18 long. I will open a can of worms but I personally believe the axle centerline and the drawbar hook point are the only factors , where the drawbar pulls from in my opinion doesn"t matter, it is the hook point working against the centerline of the axle that is levering the front up, where the drawbar is pulling from matters not a stitch. Some hot stocks and some division 4-5"s pull right off the rear cover. We put light front wheels on to get the weight transfer we needed as the wheels we had were heavy cast units. JMHO. cmon guys what do you think?