what were the engineers thinking, why no road gear

markct · Sep 8, 2003

i have noticed that alot of compacts dont have a road gear. i have been considering purchasing a MF 1020 from a friend to use for raking and tedding hay mostly. after looking at the plate on the dashboard it shows high gear as being only a hair over 8mph. at that rate it would take me forever to get to my fields! after that i started noticing that alot of compacts dont have a road gear. seems pretty dumb to me, i mean over 50 years ago when ford was making the 9N and 2N tractors they didnt have a road gear, so aftermarket companies made aditional trannys like the sherman tranny to add road gear, then with the introduction of the 8N ford added a 4spd tranny with road gear. IH had the same thing around that era too as well as most anyone making tractors. what happened? now all these years later we took a step backwards, and nowdays tractors have alot better brakes, and steering so they could much better handle the speeds, and now alot of tractors even have turn signals. seems that someone wasnt paying attention to what was learned over half a century ago. maybe i will have to stick with my fathers old ford NAA for a raking tractor, it atleast does about 14mph on the road, and my ford 8000 moves along at close to 20 mph. this has become more of a concern to me lately too since i have been considering next year doing a few fields that are even farther away than my current hayfields.

TonyC · Sep 9, 2003

Re: what were the engineers thinking, why no road

My Kubota is rated at 14.3 MPH top end. I never knew until you made this post so I looked it up. Whatever it is, I knew it was fast enough to suit me. It scoots along well enough considering how fast and furious the people drive on these back roads. I agree with you, though...8 MPH is pitiful.

DavidJ · Sep 9, 2003

My 33D is rated for 15.59 mph and it'll do every bit of it and a little more. I travel a good ways to get to Dads and it seems fairly fast to me. If you got loaded tires it'll seem really fast if you get that liquid rotating.

Gary_in_Indiana · Sep 9, 2003

When I first got my JD 4200 it was delivered to my office (I had to play with it NOW). I had someone follow me out to my property Sunday AM and it seemed to take forever. My top speed was just a hair under 13 mph. The guy following me did say that on one long downhill run he thinks I may have hit 15 mph. I know I made up for it on the ensuing long uphill portion as I actually had to shift into a lower range. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Some type of OD switch would be a nice option, to be sure. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

rockyridgefarm · Sep 9, 2003

My 430 is a little closer:

4310 and 4410 eHydro Transmission with 11.2-24 Rear Tires
Forward-Range A 7.2 km/h (4.5 mph)

Forward-Range B 14.0 km/h (8.7 mph)

Forward-Range C 28.1 km/h (17.5 mph)

Reverse-Range A 7.2 km/h (4.5 mph)

Reverse-Range B 14.0 km/h (8.7 mph)

Reverse-Range C 28.1 km/h (17.5 mph)

cowboydoc · Sep 9, 2003

I don't know about the MF but I know the deere compacts have a pretty good road gear.

GaryM · Sep 9, 2003

My 4100 tops out at less than 10 MPH. Is that a pretty good road gear? Or am I missing something?

CTyler · Sep 9, 2003

The high range on my L3130 tops out at 17mph.

cowboydoc · Sep 9, 2003

It's all proportional. The bigger the tractor the more hp and gears you are going to have. Bigger tractor more road speed.

markct · Sep 9, 2003

yea i understand that, but a MF 1020 is close to 20 hp, about the same as a ford 8N so why is it only about half the speed. a friend has a small allis chalmers compact and he has raked hay with it before but one of his biggest complaints was it took forever to get to the fields