Citydude
Elite Member
I had loaded rear tires as well. I think that properly inflated, tires will absorb shock loads for the axles.
How many hours and what kind of use?
At the risk of stoking the controversy further, I think the "danger" of wheel spacing is overestimated on this forum.
The rear axle (or any independent wheel axle) has an outer and an inner bearing. In the figure below, the axle is 070, the outer bearing is 100 and the inner bearing is 140.
Let's call the distance between wheel centerline to the outer bearing r1, and the distance between the outer bearing and the inner bearing r2. Let's also say that each rear wheel supports a load of W lbs.
The radial force experienced by the outer bearing is W*(1 + r1/r2) and the radial force experienced by the inner bearing is W*(r1/r2) in the opposite direction. The outer takes the brunt of the static and dynamic load, and is physically larger in most of our tractors.
I have the same tractor as you (I love mine!) except for engine HP. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess approximately that r1 = 10" and r2 = 8" or so. The rear wheels probably support about 40% of the weight of the tractor+loader, plus basically 100% of the operator and rear implement weight. For sake of example let's say that comes to 1000lbs per wheel.
So without the spacer, the outer bearing supports 1000*(1+10/8) = 2250 lbs, and the inner supports 1000*(10/8) = 1250 lbs. No problem, that's the design.
With the 6" spacer, r1 increases to 16". The outer bearing now supports 1000*(1 + 16/8) = 3000 lbs (33% increase), and the inner supports 1000*(16/8) = 2000 lbs (60% increase).
That might seem like a lot of additional stress on the bearings in percentage terms. However, the engineering designs had to consider worst-case scenarios, including dynamic loading (bumping around with no suspension) while supporting the largest possible rear implement the tractor can carry. AND the design would have been spec'ed with at least a safety factor of 2x, probably much more.
So unless you're driving at top speed over the bumpiest ground you can find with 1600 lbs on the 3pt hitch 100% of the time, I doubt you are even coming close to the design limits for your bearings. That said, there will always be someone who has a horror story; I'm only suggesting that as long as you operate within reasonable limits, I suspect the bearings will last longer than you. Have fun!
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PS In my observation, most of the "wheel spacers are bad" stories come from the car/truck world, where r1 and r2 are smaller than on tractors, especially on the front wheels, and therefore adding a spacer makes a much bigger difference in % terms.
This is a really important point, Smokey. In the car/truck world, people often add spacers cuz they look good or to facilitate snazzier wheels.The dangers of not using spacers to prevent rollover are more significant.