Towing dead tractor

[Swamp Dweller]

a friend once bought a WD 45 and enlisted another friend to pull it home - only about 5 miles.

he put a strap around the 2 and off he went. problem was, it took him forever to level off- at about 40 MPH.

he couldn't wave frantically at him as he felt a moment's loss of both hands on the wheel would be fatal.

he really should have seen this coming. our nickname for the tower is Norm Bates.

 

[scootergmc]

Story time here too- I pulled an Oliver Super 66 row crop home... about 9-10 miles. It had been sitting for a while and the patina was good and strong. Had a friend pull me at about 15 MPH while I steered the tractor and we made it home after a long while. As soon as we pulled into my driveway the tie rod fell off. At least it happened there and not at speed on the road.

 

[rustred]

Story time here too- I pulled an Oliver Super 66 row crop home... about 9-10 miles. It had been sitting for a while and the patina was good and strong. Had a friend pull me at about 15 MPH while I steered the tractor and we made it home after a long while. As soon as we pulled into my driveway the tie rod fell off. At least it happened there and not at speed on the road.

Holy man if there was ditches that could have ended in a roll over even. Plus u can see the actual play in tie rods when the tractor is moving. Something I always look at. Ur lucky !

 

[scootergmc]

Holy man if there was ditches that could have ended in a roll over even. Plus u can see the actual play in tie rods when the tractor is moving. Something I always look at. Ur lucky !

Trust me, I've been counting blessings since that day. Ditches on both sides of the trip. God was watching out for me....

 

[RedMF40]

a friend once bought a WD 45 and enlisted another friend to pull it home - only about 5 miles.

he put a strap around the 2 and off he went. problem was, it took him forever to level off- at about 40 MPH.

he couldn't wave frantically at him as he felt a moment's loss of both hands on the wheel would be fatal.

he really should have seen this coming. our nickname for the tower is Norm Bates.

40 mph? That tractor would probably be unsafe at half that speed. Lucky he survived.

 

[farmersamm]

The main problem with tractors is, they don't have any caster angle on the spindles. Not like a car/truck would have. Caster forces the wheels to center......thereby allowing you to tow them easily. The wheels will always follow, except in a very severe turn.

About 100yrs ago I built a towbar for my trucks. Mainly to be able to tow the swather with the tractor, then have a hitch on the swather to tow the truck. Made it a one step operation to road the whole mess to the other hay field about 3 1/2mi from here. The truck bumper was modified to accept the towbar. Updated from my old 78 PowerWagon, and did the same with the newer 94 F-350. I tend to build with worst case scenarios in mind. My bumpers are light weight, but exceedingly strong.............with provision for towbar, or chain, attachment. You can't operate older equipment unless you plan on some problems down the road.

Water in the gas(sigh). My beautiful K'kins following along to keep folks off my butt.

Had to slap together some adapters for the tow bar to get the Allis home when it started to seize. Shut 'er down to prevent further damage.

Used the hydraulics on the Oliver to raise the loader arms, then towed the old gal back to the house. It went well on gentle turns, but balked at the turn into the front gate. Had to manhandle it to turn the wheels. Not a pleasant experience, but got the old thing where it belonged. The Oliver has a provision for turning the wheels without engine power, unlike the Allis. The steering motor on the Oliver can be set to act as a "pump" to move the steering cylinder inside the gearbox.

 

[farmersamm]

Anyways.......................you need a rigid towbar to move anything with a steerable front end. Anything else is asking for trouble.

 

[old-9]

Yes it will follow , I pull
Mine by myself when no help is around , i Tie the tarp strap at 6:00 position and down ward. Gives a bit of movement but no steering wheel turning. If u want it to track properly u need an actual v tow hitch and mount it solid to the pulled tractor. A pipe like u have is no better than using a chain. As the tractor will go where it wants with out the steering being tied.

The pipe will allow you to stop, chain not.

 

[RedMF40]

Anyways.......................you need a rigid towbar to move anything with a steerable front end. Anything else is asking for trouble.

You have some great fabrication skills, I’m impressed. I probably should have said “moving” a dead tractor since I’ll just be on my property. Anyway, I tried the rigid pipe and there was too much wandering side-to-side. I bought a new tow bar locally and modified it a bit to clamp onto the front axle of my tractor. I believe it’ll work on mostly level ground, but it doesn’t allow for a lot of up-and-down movement which could cause damage to the tow bar or the axle. I think I have to go back to the drawing board on this one, will attach a photo when I have a minute.
Thanks for the reply.
Gerrit

 

[YosmiteSam]

I'm going to tow an 8N about two miles on a paved mountain county road in a couple of weeks. What I'm going to do is use a Ford 600's three point hitch with a bar between the two lift arms. That bar is big and thick and has a row of holes for mounting a ball anywhere along it's length.

To hitch it up I'm going to maneuver that bar under the front of the 8N where it has an aftermarket kind of a bumper thing which has a provision for a hitch ball to be attached. I'm not going to use a ball, I'm going to use a big bolt with extra nuts so I can leave some slack on the bolt and still lock the treads so it won't work loose. I'm also going to slip two big flat washers between the two holes to act like a thrust bearings.

After lifting the front end of the 8N up I'm going to remove the two front tires and wheel weights. Then I'm going to transfer the wheel weights to the 600 which doesn't have front wheel weights, but needs them.

I'll hual the front wheels home in my pickup.

I have to go up a steep set of switchbacks on that county road. I hope that 600's low gear is low enough to handle that load up that steep hill. I have no Sherman transmission in front of that 600's four speed transmission. That's why I'm towing the 8N home, to take the Sherman transmission out of the 8N, to retro fit it into the 600.





I don't think that 600 is actually a tractor, not a real tractor with it having only four forward gears, no fuel pump, no double clutch, the second one being for the PTO which draws it's power from in front of the transmission like a proper tractor does.


I think both the 8N and the 600 are those Transformer things. Each being half of heavy ford truck which is disguised as a tractor. Maybe if I park them next to each other they will transform themselves into a whole heavy ford truck.

If they do not turn themselves in a whole truck, when I get the 600 improved with that Sherman transmission,and an electric fuel pump, I'm going to name it Optimus Prime.

According to my son Optimus Prime is, or was, the supreme commander of the Autobots in their fight against the Decepticons.

 

[RedMF40]

Not sure about this plan, maybe someone else can weigh in. Sounds like you are going up steep hills with a lot of weight on your 3 pt hitch. Tractors are known to flip backwards very easily but maybe whatever you’ve rigged up back there will act as a “wheelie bar.” Maybe not. You did mention weights. Will they be enough?

 

[Non-farmer]

How many remember "wind wing windows"? If you were a smoker they were real handy. LOL

I would never tow a tractor faster than the top speed it is designed to travel at.

I remember, and yes they were. So glad I quit that horrible habit in the mid 90s.

As for the speed - interesting info to know. Two friends of mine delivered my WD to me when I got it by towing it. Too bad the tower didn't know this. He had the guy on the WD white knuckled the whole way on a stretch of state highway - about 8 miles iirc - because he was doing 40 mph at the slowest. The poor guy steering couldn't wave to him to try to slow him down because he was afraid of taking one hand off the wheel. Thank goodness no one died lol.

 

[Non-farmer]

Oops, six month old thread. Ah well lol.

 

[scootergmc]

I'm going to tow an 8N about two miles on a paved mountain county road in a couple of weeks. What I'm going to do is use a Ford 600's three point hitch with a bar between the two lift arms. That bar is big and thick and has a row of holes for mounting a ball anywhere along it's length.

To hitch it up I'm going to maneuver that bar under the front of the 8N where it has an aftermarket kind of a bumper thing which has a provision for a hitch ball to be attached. I'm not going to use a ball, I'm going to use a big bolt with extra nuts so I can leave some slack on the bolt and still lock the treads so it won't work loose. I'm also going to slip two big flat washers between the two holes to act like a thrust bearings.

After lifting the front end of the 8N up I'm going to remove the two front tires and wheel weights. Then I'm going to transfer the wheel weights to the 600 which doesn't have front wheel weights, but needs them.

I'll hual the front wheels home in my pickup.

I have to go up a steep set of switchbacks on that county road. I hope that 600's low gear is low enough to handle that load up that steep hill. I have no Sherman transmission in front of that 600's four speed transmission. That's why I'm towing the 8N home, to take the Sherman transmission out of the 8N, to retro fit it into the 600.





I don't think that 600 is actually a tractor, not a real tractor with it having only four forward gears, no fuel pump, no double clutch, the second one being for the PTO which draws it's power from in front of the transmission like a proper tractor does.


I think both the 8N and the 600 are those Transformer things. Each being half of heavy ford truck which is disguised as a tractor. Maybe if I park them next to each other they will transform themselves into a whole heavy ford truck.

If they do not turn themselves in a whole truck, when I get the 600 improved with that Sherman transmission,and an electric fuel pump, I'm going to name it Optimus Prime.

According to my son Optimus Prime is, or was, the supreme commander of the Autobots in their fight against the Decepticons.

Why not just tow it chained to the pickup truck? Surely you have a friend or someone who can sit and steer the 8N?

 

[RedMF40]

Oops, six month old thread. Ah well lol.

It was just revived today by a new member so there’s some interest. He wants to tow a tractor up some steep hills.

 

[YosmiteSam]

Not sure about this plan, maybe someone else can weigh in. Sounds like you are going up steep hills with a lot of weight on your 3 pt hitch. Tractors are known to flip backwards very easily but maybe whatever you’ve rigged up back there will act as a “wheelie bar.” Maybe not. You did mention weights. Will they be enough?

You did spot a real problem bringing up weight distribution.

At the moment I have a bushhog on that three point and have been going up and down steep hills with that with no front weight. I have learned several things which means I need more weight up front. And that I need to get rid of the huge iron rear weights, and perhaps even drain the salt water from the rear tires.

When I started this project there was an awful scrap metal thing, kind of sort of like a front end loader wrapped around the tractor. That's why it has too much rear weight, and no front end weight. I got rid of that junk loader thing right away. That useless loader attachment didn't have cylinders with safety valves, if a hose were to burst, the whole mess of it would come crashing down.

So far I have found that I can lightly touch a wheel break and before I hardly know it it will spin the whole tractor around. All the way around a 360 very fast. I have also found that if I get a bit too close to a tree with it, and if the rear tire brushes up against a tree a bit, instead of it just brushing a bit of bark off of the tree like normally would happen, it wraps around the tree walking that tree between the inside of the rear tire and the running board. That scratched the running board, dented it as well, and that wasn't worst of it. The tree I brushed up against was on the clutch side, I pushed the clutch in and had it down, but the clutch pedal sicks out a bit longer than the running board is wide even without it being dented in a bit.
I got it stopped, but when I tried to back away from the tree the end of the clutch pedal was embedded about an inch into the tree, wouldn't move. I had to get off, dig out a screwdriver to use as a wood chisel to free up the clutch. Then I was able to back it away, unwinding it from the tree.

No I'm not going to have that kind of thing happening when I tow the other tractor with it. What I will do is add the 8N's front weight to the 600 and then unbolt other parts of the 8N as needed to remove even more weight from the 8N's front end I have lifted off the ground until I feel it's safe.

 

[YosmiteSam]

It was just revived today by a new member so there’s some interest. He wants to tow a tractor up some steep hills.

Just one steep hill, up the whole side of Midpines mountain.

Something folk here call a mountain, I would call it a hill.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

Why not just tow it chained to the pickup truck? Surely you have a friend or someone who can sit and steer the 8N?

I've never seen an 8N with working brakes.

As long as the towing tractor has brakes, I don't see a problem with the plan. The dry weight of an 8N is 2400lbs or so. You'll have well less than that on the 600's 3pt hitch especially if you remove the front wheels and weights. Probably under 1000lbs.

The 650 has a rear lift capacity of 1250lbs (all based on info from tractordata).

Worst case if you feel yourself getting in trouble, the 8N's front end will make a great boat anchor. Just lower the 3pt.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

You did spot a real problem bringing up weight distribution.

At the moment I have a bushhog on that three point and have been going up and down steep hills with that with no front weight. I have learned several things which means I need more weight up front. And that I need to get rid of the huge iron rear weights, and perhaps even drain the salt water from the rear tires.

When I started this project there was an awful scrap metal thing, kind of sort of like a front end loader wrapped around the tractor. That's why it has too much rear weight, and no front end weight. I got rid of that junk loader thing right away. That useless loader attachment didn't have cylinders with safety valves, if a hose were to burst, the whole mess of it would come crashing down.

So far I have found that I can lightly touch a wheel break and before I hardly know it it will spin the whole tractor around. All the way around a 360 very fast. I have also found that if I get a bit too close to a tree with it, and if the rear tire brushes up against a tree a bit, instead of it just brushing a bit of bark off of the tree like normally would happen, it wraps around the tree walking that tree between the inside of the rear tire and the running board. That scratched the running board, dented it as well, and that wasn't worst of it. The tree I brushed up against was on the clutch side, I pushed the clutch in and had it down, but the clutch pedal sicks out a bit longer than the running board is wide even without it being dented in a bit.
I got it stopped, but when I tried to back away from the tree the end of the clutch pedal was embedded about an inch into the tree, wouldn't move. I had to get off, dig out a screwdriver to use as a wood chisel to free up the clutch. Then I was able to back it away, unwinding it from the tree.

No I'm not going to have that kind of thing happening when I tow the other tractor with it. What I will do is add the 8N's front weight to the 600 and then unbolt other parts of the 8N as needed to remove even more weight from the 8N's front end I have lifted off the ground until I feel it's safe.

Sounds like you've got good brakes at least. The driver's depth perception may be questionable, but the tractor's brakes work...

Seriously, you don't even want to brush up against a tree on the outside of the wheel. First off it's not good for the tree, and second off you stand a better than average chance of wiping out the valve stem on the tire, leaving you with a flat. But, if the tree is ending up on the INSIDE of the wheel, you weren't brushing up against it on the OUTSIDE... Just stay away from the trees, and if it's too tight to get through where you need to go on a regular basis, do some trail building. Get rid of the trees you have to rub up against to get through.

"Safety valve?" What's that? Remember, it's 1954.

As far as towing your tractor, see my response above. Take it slow and use common sense. Your "panic move" should be lowering the 3pt to put the wheel-less front end of the 8N on the ground, turning it into a boat anchor.

 

[showcrop]

Unless your hitch lifts the front wheels off the ground to make the tractor mimic a two wheel trailer it will just go straight or to whatever direction the wheels are set. If the hitch gets to an extreme angle it will drag the front wheels but there will be a lot of resistance. If you are in grass or dirt the front tractor wheels will dig in quite a bit. It may work fair in wet grass.

Though less than a road vehicle tractor front ends still have "castor"