High draft pulling without planetary reduction?

[MrM4]

To the OP, for what your talking about doing you had just as well buy an 1980s era 4 wheel drive tractor for 20-40k and do it like all the other hobby farmers, parts are cheap compare to modern farm equipment and the Horse Power is still there. From what I have gathered from your post I dont expect that you have a large acreage, so it would seem fitting the a small investment in a machine designed to do what you want would be ideal. I dont see a 6x6 standing up to any type of every day farm tillage use As a farmer and rancher myself I would suggest you get a good used tractor and tillage equipment that would be suited for the machine you have. At the end of the day you will most likly save money and have a better suited machine. I just dont see a truck doing the job as well as a tractor that was designed for that type of work.

Best of luck.

I should add that using a truck with small equipment probelly works fine, if you dont have a tractor I can understand using it. It all depends on how much land you have. If your talking about anything bigger the a 80 or 160 acres I have a hard time seeing how anyone who doesnt have a ton of extra time can expect to cover a field with a truck a 12 foot disk.

 

[Trango]

I am reminded that I keep seeing these axles for sale in our local Craigslist:

5 Ton Monster Truck axles

 

[Excuse Me]

To the OP, for what your talking about doing you had just as well buy an 1980s era 4 wheel drive tractor for 20-40k and do it like all the other hobby farmers, parts are cheap compare to modern farm equipment and the Horse Power is still there. From what I have gathered from your post I dont expect that you have a large acreage, so it would seem fitting the a small investment in a machine designed to do what you want would be ideal. I dont see a 6x6 standing up to any type of every day farm tillage use As a farmer and rancher myself I would suggest you get a good used tractor and tillage equipment that would be suited for the machine you have. At the end of the day you will most likly save money and have a better suited machine. I just dont see a truck doing the job as well as a tractor that was designed for that type of work.

Best of luck.

I should add that using a truck with small equipment probelly works fine, if you dont have a tractor I can understand using it. It all depends on how much land you have. If your talking about anything bigger the a 80 or 160 acres I have a hard time seeing how anyone who doesnt have a ton of extra time can expect to cover a field with a truck a 12 foot disk.

We are pretty small acreage. About 1,100 acres. Mostly grain and tall fescue grass seed. Some small seed legumes like clovers. We also have 30 acres of blueberries and some nursery stock.

I have a Steiger KP1360. I will be using it on these tools until I get a truck setup.

Here's a small thread about some of the nursery stuff I use.
Viewing a thread - I doubled my productivity hauling nursery plants. (pics)

This is a mutation of my double ended forklift I made for hauling blueberry pallets out of the field. I'll spare you the boring details as you likely are not interested in this sort of stuff. But just this stupid little pickup with a lift and each end took the place of four tractors and operators. It has never dropped a pallet as the 4 tractors would have at least one per season.
Viewing a thread - What else can I use it for??? (pics)
It has a black rasberry cane trimmer on it int hose pictures.


Here it is in it's working clothes. I used this pickup so much I actually wore it out. It took 6 years of punishment in all kinds of stuff from berries to cane trimming to nursery to...... I have retired it for now and have a new chassis to put under it when time allows.

 

[Excuse Me]

The implements I am using and intend to be using coming up, do require quite a bit of low speed torque. They are also very, very heavy. These new type implements may weigh up to 25 ton.

What implements weigh 25 tons?

The home made ones. I am transitioning to conservation tillage and planting. To direct drill a cash crop into a perennial tall fescue field, it takes a lot of weight. I have been building a couple tools to accomplish this task in one or two passes instead of the normal 11 passes over to get the sod field ready for planting.

I know this is getting off topic of military, so if we get warned, you can go to agtalk.com and follow some of my progress on various new planting and tillage methods I am getting into. I go by "Old Pokey" over there as well as on the combine forum, I go by "doorknob".

The start of one of my new tools.
Strip till project. Home made tool bar etc. - The Combine Forum

 

[MrM4]

We are pretty small acreage. About 1,100 acres. Mostly grain and tall fescue grass seed. Some small seed legumes like clovers. We also have 30 acres of blueberries and some nursery stock.

I have a Steiger KP1360. I will be using it on these tools until I get a truck setup.

Here's a small thread about some of the nursery stuff I use.
Viewing a thread - I doubled my productivity hauling nursery plants. (pics)

This is a mutation of my double ended forklift I made for hauling blueberry pallets out of the field. I'll spare you the boring details as you likely are not interested in this sort of stuff. But just this stupid little pickup with a lift and each end took the place of four tractors and operators. It has never dropped a pallet as the 4 tractors would have at least one per season.
Viewing a thread - What else can I use it for??? (pics)
It has a black rasberry cane trimmer on it int hose pictures.


Here it is in it's working clothes. I used this pickup so much I actually wore it out. It took 6 years of punishment in all kinds of stuff from berries to cane trimming to nursery to...... I have retired it for now and have a new chassis to put under it when time allows.
View attachment 279225

Pretty cool! I have not had time to read the link you posted yet but the forklift made me smile.

 

[m16ty]

The home made ones. I am transitioning to conservation tillage and planting. To direct drill a cash crop into a perennial tall fescue field, it takes a lot of weight. I have been building a couple tools to accomplish this task in one or two passes instead of the normal 11 passes over to get the sod field ready for planting.

Why not just use a no-till drill? They can plant right through the turf in one pass. Around here it's common practice to Round-up the field and plant through the turf.

 

[Excuse Me]

Why not just use a no-till drill? They can plant right through the turf in one pass. Around here it's common practice to Round-up the field and plant through the turf.

Like in post #34? Ya............., well, I'll get into the agronomic fallacy of factory no-till drills in the Willamette valley Oregon some other time.

What I wanted to know is about the axles. If anyone has any info or experience in the use of inboard final reduction like the double reduction 5 ton or even the axles under the M920 in a high draft or heavy, continuous pull.
But I have studied the spline system at the carrier and the flange mounting at the hub, and I dont think it will work for long durations. That is why I mentioned that I may be calling Sam Winer about those Clarks he has for sale.

 

[quickfarms]

I do not know if this has been mentioned but the early jeeps were marketed as tractors. I know they are a lot smaller.

 

[Trango]

One thing that comes to mind is that there is an iteration of the 5 ton axle that has roughly 10:1 reduction in the gears. Here, I found some additional details:

Pirate4x4.Com Bulletin Board - View Single Post - 5 ton Rockwell Thread

Yep, 10.26. I was thinking that was the ratio. I don't know what generation of 5 tons those actually came in, but that might be a starting point. Maybe start with the major axle vendors - Boyce, memphis, chuck's trucks?

Best,
Bob

 

[Welder Sam]

Wow. No-till and air planters are king in this area, depending on who u talk to. Theres still alot of conventional work tho. Id love to see a hipper roller hooked to your 5ton. Best of luck my friend. Sorry i cant be of more use.

 

[Excuse Me]

Through history, many people and manufacturers have given a go at making that tractor/automobile thing work. As mentioned just above, the jeep as a tractor. MM made a limited build of the UDLX. I think Ford had a couple goes at it once in history.

In the 1970s and 80s, things got a little tough for the ag industry. Earlier commodities hit an all time record high and profits were off the charts. Farmers made so much they could'nt spend it fast enough. Then,....inflation. With variable interest rates on the land contracts the farmers had just purchased to expand, the interest rates went up as fast or faster than the commodity prices earlier on. Many lost it all. Some committed suicide. Many lost their family due to depression and alcoholism.

The few that kept their wits about them, made due with improvised equipment and had taken jobs in town to keep their land. One such improvision was using old semi trucks as tractors. The rear suspension was removed and the axle solid mounted to the frame. Some fish plating of the frame and a blocked up front axle and they were off to farm. Trucks could be had for pennies at the time and many already had a truck or two in the fence row. Cabovers were the most common then. Tractor tires or construction scraper tires were mounted to the rear axle. Low ratios were swapped out. A hydraulic pump was added to the accessory drive as about all that was need then was to raise and lower implements once in a while.

Several farmers that lived through those times learned to improvise in many ways. They learned that they did not have to rely on the mass manufacturers and their high priced stuff for everything. Some later built their own ag tractor using truck parts and fabricating their own chassis and hydraulic systems.

Still today, many that still have a shop and some abilities will improvise equipment to suit a specific need. SOme just can not justify the expense of a tractor for their needs and still make land payments. Here is a picture of one such persons improvision. This was just in the Farm show magazine a few years ago. Owner says it works excellent and prefers it over an ag tractor for many reasons including the ride.

 

[Excuse Me]

Oh, and many of those improvisers were WW2 vets and their children. To keep it sort of military, here is a picture of my dad in Alaska during the Korean war/conflict. He made motor pool sgt. He too was a great improvisor. Much of which he said he learned in the Army.

 

[m16ty]

I can't tell for sure but it looks like the truck in the pic may have a tractor rear end mounted on the truck.

 

[Excuse Me]

Yes, that one has a planetary final rear axle.
Farm show magazine and other "done it myself" publications have had these articles now and then over many years. Here's one article that has a pic of a cabover. Link to article. If you read the short article it will tell you that this idea came form other truck/tractor builders. This one even has turning brakes.

Many of the new ag tractors are coming out with air ride cabs today to combat the rigid ride. It dont take much to see where the new demands lay for the tractors today. They are constantly adding bigger cabs with second seats. Then came front suspension. Now comes air ride cabs. The Europeans have had air or hydraulic brakes on their ag tractors for decades. They dont use many trucks over there, they use their higher speed tractors pulling a huge trailer with brakes for most everything, and do so quite successfully.

I saw a new JCB tractor drive by 2 weeks ago. It was doing the speed of traffic, near 50mph. I asked about it. They said it does over 45 and that they even drove one to an equipment show down the interstate highway for a short distance. Again, no one seems to see the trend f the ag tractor heading toward what a truck already does. Multiple people in the cab, suspension, air ride cabs, higher ground speed,................ One of the next changes will be the hitching system.

 

[plym49]

Seeing the pictures and reading the descriptions of the home-brewed equipment, along with the rationale, brings to mind the manysimilar articles in my vintage Popular Science-type magazines. After WWII there were a lot of Model T parts, a lot of demand but not a lot of money or re-tooled manufacturing capacity. I realize that these Model-T based tractors were at the low end of the scale compared to what you are talking about, but nevertheless they demonstrate good old Yankee ingenuity, creativity, innovation and practical thought - not to mention mechanical aptitude.

 

[Autocar]

Why not just buy a 5 ton M818 and try it. At about $5k they are cheap and if it doen't work just sell it or junk it.