From our dear friend John :
Before filling the tyres with the Calcium Chloride solution, think why you think that you need to do this, is it because the wheels are spinning when they should not? If they do this with mounted equipment always check the Free Play on the Draft Control Spring at the back of the driver’s seat. If this is not set correctly then you will not be able to get the correct weight transfer from the implement onto the Tractor rear wheels, which was after all what the Ferguson System is all about “Penetration without built-in weight” was the Ferguson philosophy and this is true even today. If you start adding weight to the tractor that is defeating the whole point of the Ferguson System. I realise that in some applications it is advantageous to have a little extra weight on the tractor but what will do for one will not do for another. In the main if you adjust the Draft Control Spring so it can just be turned by hand when you have a two furrow plough mounted on the linkage and in the raised position you will find that traction is generally improved, it will also depend on the condition of the tyres and if you have too many revs on the engine as well, because you are trying to go too fast and when you do that the pressure down the top link from the implement is such that it is compressing the Draft Spring beyond the normal working range and going into the area of the safety overload, when it does this it is losing some of the weight transference and the tractor is not operating at its full potential. So if you check the Draft Spring setting and slow down a little you may find that your traction is improved. If the tyres are worn, adding ballast is only a short term solution to the problem, the answer is new tyres and drive sensibly.
The engine should be operated between ½ and ¾ throttle, on all field work and usually no more than second gear for implements penetrating the ground, this engine speed is the most economical in every way. PTO speed (545rpm) is ¾ throttle so it falls within these limits. You need to consider before you add weight to the Ferguson Tractor, are you adding it because you are not getting the required traction and is that because the tyres are worn and also maybe not at the correct pressure of 12 lbs psi if the ground is dry and 10 lbs psi if the going is wet or sticky, it is possible WITH CARE to drop the pressure lower to 8lbs psi if the conditions demand this, but heavy draft loads should be avoided as the tyres can “creep” around the rim and tear off the valve from the inner tube and the tyres should be re-inflated as soon as possible to prevent excessive flexing of the sidewalls of the tyres unnecessarily.
Filling the tyres with the Calcium Chloride mixture will not cause the rims to rust unless there is a leak, so if it leaks, get it repaired. If there is a leak it will be wet around the tyre and you will be able to see it, even plain water will cause some rust but with Calcium chloride in the mixture it will rust badly. Adding water ballast to the rear wheels adds about 5cwt to each wheel which can be very useful at times but mostly you will be carrying this excess weight around all the year round which can add to your fuel costs and it does wear the tyres if allowed to flex and if you don’t allow them to flex they do not grip as they should do.
Don’t forget that if you change your wheels for row-crop work and for ploughing you will have to handle these heavy wheels and you just can’t do it on your own.
We used to water ballast tyres many years ago but I was convinced at the time it wasn’t always necessary and usually it was just to make the Tractor heavier which was normal for a Tractor at that time, it didn’t plough any better, but because it was heavier they thought it did. This idea probably came from the Ford boys who did not like the Ferguson as you know and called it the “grey rat” (Jealousy I think) maybe if Henry Fords son hadn’t been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and played it straight with Harry Ferguson, they may have thought differently.
Right now all the tractors are much heavier that the TE20’s and the 35’s is that a good thing? The latest thinking about this now is that all these big tractors need bigger tyres to lessen the ground pressure so we are going back to Harry Ferguson’s thinking that less weight is important to prevent ground consolidation even running the road trucks on the fields to collect the straw and hay rather than using a tractor and trailer is causing problems with that.
Regarding the question of efficiency, all that you have to do is watch the rear wheels when you are ploughing or cultivating and see if there is any slippage and if there is can you adjust the Tractor to prevent some of this, you will always get some slippage with a rubber tyred Tractor but you can take some measures such as I have listed above to help prevent it or at least reduce it.
My own view is that mostly it is unnecessary providing the Tractor and implement are set-up correctly, I also know that it can be an advantage when using non-Ferguson implements such a four wheeled trailer where there is no weight transference.
When you alter the Draft Spring setting you also need to check the Control Quadrant setting as this is important and most of the problems of weight transfer can be directly attributed to incorrect setting of the Draft Spring and the Control Quadrant. You must set the Draft Spring first or check that it is ok and then check and adjust the Control Quadrant, no other way will do.
I hope that answers your question to some degree JC, let me know if you need more.
