What would you do??

[ss55]

Working on my regular MF 95 tonight and building a hammer strap for the draw bar to get it up to the 18 inch height we are allowed in the vintage tractor pulls. Would you drill and bolt it to the draw bar or weld it all together??? No plans on ever needing to take it off.

Could you clamp the top strap to the drawbar using either U-bolts or four bolts around the drawbar? That would eliminate modifying the drawbar. Different spacers could be used to adjust the drawbar height.

 

[showcrop]

ya ok i will will watch how you demonstrate that.

Notice "what you want", not what I do. Well maybe a time or two out of 1200 hooks.

 

[Leroy]

Working on my regular MF 95 tonight and building a hammer strap for the draw bar to get it up to the 18 inch height we are allowed in the vintage tractor pulls. Would you drill and bolt it to the draw bar or weld it all together??? No plans on ever needing to take it off.

The pull I worked for over 25 years you would NOT be alowed to pull with a hitch like that, Has to be factory made with NO alterations or height restrictions' If Factory height is low you have to stay with that. Health reasons I had to stop working the pull and am now 80 years old.

 

[Fritz Maurer]

The pull I worked for over 25 years you would NOT be alowed to pull with a hitch like that, Has to be factory made with NO alterations or height restrictions' If Factory height is low you have to stay with that. Health reasons I had to stop working the pull and am now 80 years old.

That's the point I was trying to make earlier... the higher the hitch the more weight on the tractor and this tends to lift the sled.
The whole idea may be to take the weight off the sled, advantageous to the competitors, but cheating in the eyes of the organizers/sled owner; hence, height restriction guidelines.

There is apparently a different rule book wherever the OP is pulling if they allow a raised hitch on a stock tractor. The hitch height outlines were strictly enforced at the garden tractor pulls.

 

[Masseyharrisnut]

We are allowed an 18 inch drawbar height. No other mention of drawbar configuration or pulling from the hammer strap. I only pull in southern Alberta. The rules are the same everywhere I’ve pulled so far.

 

[rustred]

That's the point I was trying to make earlier... the higher the hitch the more weight on the tractor and this tends to lift the sled.
The whole idea may be to take the weight off the sled, advantageous to the competitors, but cheating in the eyes of the organizers/sled owner; hence, height restriction guidelines.

There is apparently a different rule book wherever the OP is pulling if they allow a raised hitch on a stock tractor. The hitch height outlines were strictly enforced at the garden tractor pulls.

It only states max hitch height of 18 “ in our rules. .plus no shorter than 18inches back from the centre of the rear axle. We had one guy pulling only from the horse shoe on his farmalls. He had no drawbar. So naturally he had an advantage and was winning. They made him install the factory drawbar then he wasn’t always in the top three. Yes I realize some of these older tractors are in the 14-16 inch range. I Tryed all that with my w4 and a high hitch helps nothing other than going down the tractor on the rear wheels. Lowered it back down and big improvement. Plus the factory has it figured where your hitch height should be and changing it that much don’t help a lot. Just a 2 inch higher hitch makes a big difference also. I do agree with keeping things factory. As with a factory hammer strap. Is this garden tractor pull antique pulls. That’s all we do around here. And another thing I don’t like is a bunch of weights hanging off the tractor that the tractor never even came out with.

 

[Masseyharrisnut]

I would be surprised if the front wheels on this 95 would ever come off the ground at a pull with my home made hammer strap. Would be cool though. In my opinion.

your gonna have fun drilling that drawbar, that is hard steel. might need the machine shop to do that also. this what i would do is weld the first one or two to the drawbar, which is why you need an experienced welder not to crystallize it with too much heat. then drill the others and have the bolts screw into those two lower ones. can be machine shop work also. that way if you find its too high you can just remove one or 2 as necessary. of course you will need different length bolts also. have 2 bolts across from each other at the front , with one bolt in the middle rearward. cause you are pulling off that hammer strap alone not like pulling an implement with a pin through both. but your gonna power out before you break them 3/4 inch bolts. plus your good to add another set of rear weights to get her up to 8500 lbs. and eat a big breakfast!

I was pleasantly surprised how easy the draw bar drilled. Wasn’t any harder that the flat bar steel I bought.

 

[rustred]

I would be surprised if the front wheels on this 95 would ever come off the ground at a pull with my home made hammer strap. Would be cool though. In my opinion.

I was pleasantly surprised how easy the draw bar drilled. Wasn’t any harder that the flat bar steel I bought.

i have never saw that happen either, they are a long tractor and power out any time i saw them pull . did u spin out other times ?

 

[Leroy]

It only states max hitch height of 18 “ in our rules. .plus no shorter than 18inches back from the centre of the rear axle. We had one guy pulling only from the horse shoe on his farmalls. He had no drawbar. So naturally he had an advantage and was winning. They made him install the factory drawbar then he wasn’t always in the top three. Yes I realize some of these older tractors are in the 14-16 inch range. I Tryed all that with my w4 and a high hitch helps nothing other than going down the tractor on the rear wheels. Lowered it back down and big improvement. Plus the factory has it figured where your hitch height should be and changing it that much don’t help a lot. Just a 2 inch higher hitch makes a big difference also. I do agree with keeping things factory. As with a factory hammer strap. Is this garden tractor pull antique pulls. That’s all we do around here. And another thing I don’t like is a bunch of weights hanging off the tractor that the tractor never even came out with.

Been a few years since I worked the pull and I helped write the rulls. If I rember correctly it was 59 and down, anything else was exibition only. And the reason for the height rulling was take a 1/2 inch bolt at 6 inches long and try pulling from only one end very good chance the bolt could not stand the pull like that. Safty factor/ And factory only hitch ment no welds that might be weak. And it could not be hooked to differential instead of a drawbar. And no front weights, only 2 factory weights per rear wheel and must be bolted as from factory. No long rods sticking out for somebody walking past the tractor from acidenthy hitting the rod and getting badly hurt/ This is Ohio. And the reason I am not working the pull now is at about 77 years old my body woyld satan all the walking requirede. Am now 80 A few years after new rulls went into use puller count dropede but now I think it is higher than it ever was. Try chacing down next puller and walking the length of tract 2-3 times to try to finf driver for next puller and legs were out fast.. The next year after I started we decided if driver and tractor was not in line when caled they were droped from the chance to pull, Next year everybody was where they were supposed to be.

 

[Masseyharrisnut]

i have never saw that happen either, they are a long tractor and power out any time i saw them pull . did u spin out other times ?

I’ve only pulled this 95 once and it spun out easily. Need to get 450 pounds on it and hopefully the drawbar height will help.

 

[Leroy]

Been a few years since I worked the pull and I helped write the rulls. If I rember correctly it was 59 and down, anything else was exibition only. And the reason for the height rulling was take a 1/2 inch bolt at 6 inches long and try pulling from only one end very good chance the bolt could not stand the pull like that. Safty factor/ And factory only hitch ment no welds that might be weak. And it could not be hooked to differential instead of a drawbar. And no front weights, only 2 factory weights per rear wheel and must be bolted as from factory. No long rods sticking out for somebody walking past the tractor from acidenthy hitting the rod and getting badly hurt/ This is Ohio. And the reason I am not working the pull now is at about 77 years old my body woyld satan all the walking requirede. Am now 80 A few years after new rulls went into use puller count dropede but now I think it is higher than it ever was. Try chacing down next puller and walking the length of tract 2-3 times to try to finf driver for next puller and legs were out fast.. The next year after I started we decided if driver and tractor was not in line when caled they were droped from the chance to pull, Next year everybody was where they were supposed to be.

I negleted to mention before all tractors are limited to as from factory and out of field. No modifications.