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Croswell, Michigan | What was the advantage compared to a narrow front? I imagine they could turn on a dime...
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Wallis, TX | Here in the south, land of cotton, it would not knock off as many bolls when cultivating. And,,,, we had to cultivate well into the summer. |
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Windom, MN | I would think it would be narrower when trying to drive down the row. Straddle two rows with the rear tire and the front tire would run down the middle. Yeah they turn short too. First zero turn mower I ever saw was a super c with a belly mower, that thing would just whip right around.
I should say I have zero experience on a narrow front tractor. We never had one, but we do have a narrow front for our 460, it was converted to a wide front before I was born. |
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NW Washington | I think a lot of them were used on farms that used furrow irrigation where there was furrow or small ditch between each row. These area also used row crop wide fronts before they were used by the corn and bean growers too for the same reason, but the old wide fronts did not turn as short as the tricycle fronts turned. |
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Sunburst Montana | Seems like they were popular in sugar beet areas too. You see some out west here in the grain belt for some reason. Might be because they made nimble haying tractors?? We have a 1937 BN and a slant dash BN carcass. The first single narrow front tractors JD made was the BN and they were marketed initially as "garden" tractors.
Edited by Steiger Man 10/1/2014 23:39
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Your moms house | They go through mud a lot better also. We use one for pulling the traveling gun. |
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| Back in the '50s we had an IH H that we would put a single front tire under it for planting. Tractor would follow the marker trench almost as well as GPS does today. We would also use the tractor with the single tire when chopping silage . Rest of the year we would put a regular tricycle front under it. The single front wheel was originally purchased when my uncle bought an experimental four row 20" bean planter & ywo row cultivator. The tricle front would fit between the 20" rows. |
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Oregon | If you had a tricycle front, the single was nicer for cultivating than two wheels- especially when turning / crossing rows. We had a Super M under a mounted picker and it was also nicer with a single front- the furrows didn't beat you up so badly. Remember, Deere had "Roll-o_matic" and IH did not! I used to see a lot of single fronts with a sugar beet tire- so I assume that it was a good setup for those operations back in the day.
-Mike |
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Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot | A two wheeled narrow front won't go down rows. Also, a single wheel like that puts a tire in every furrow if your using two row equipment (36" beds) like everyone here did. That was also when everything was row irrigated with siphon tubes. Having each furrow packed made a big difference, kept the water running the same. Otherwise that middle furrow would run slower, and you'd have only 2 out of 3 furrows done, all the way across the set.
Then, everything went to solid set sprinklers. Those tricycle tractors made the best pipe wagon tractors, or even just pulling a pipe trailer since you can turn so tight on the headlands you can pull the trailer axle straight to the end of the field and not run over the rows on the ends with it. Still see some guys who use them for that reason.
Having a tire track still makes for more uniform beds, which is nice in flat bed onions. But now, everything is 6 row. I've seen guys run triples to pack each furrow, that gets pretty wide when each tire is 36" from the other. Center to center of the outside duals is 18'. Also a weighted idler wheel hanging off the weight rack to pack the middle furrow, or just someone driving a little tractor around to catch the unpacked middle furrows.
Those do ride rough as can be though, not a big issue in a nice soft potato or onion field, but you do not want one in a hay or grain field. I thought it was all tricycle tractors until a few years ago when I ran a turning rake on a "rollomatic" trike tractor. Those ride much better. |
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Henderson, Minnesota | a single front wheel on a mounted corn picker would not ball up with mud and cornstalks like a tricycle front would |
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Chebanse, IL..... | Mfg offered them so tractor pullers could use them to lighten the front end & thus allow for more "moveable weight". That's my theory anyway. 
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Thumb of Michigan | We had a A or B (don't recall now) and later a 60 that we pulled beans with. I remember my Dad and Grandad changing the front end from a wide front to a single tire every year before they put the bean puller on. In that case, I'm sure they felt they were doing less damage to the crop with just one wheel ahead of the puller. |
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Southeast Minnesota | I think the real reason is one less tire to fix. |
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Central Nebraska | Dad listed the corn when I was little. Our JD 730 had the Roll-a-matic front end. During first cultivation the twin tires would ride the ridge great and keep you on the row. A single or wide front liked to wander off the ridge. |
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Alton, Ia | I always thought it was to save money, saves a tire. We've maybe lost sight of what it was like farming back then. Remember, these tractors had hooks on the back to carry the hyd cylinder, it was too expensive to have a cylinder on every implement. Things have changed a little. |
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| I notice that on them tractors. Now every piece of equipment has it own cylinder or cylinders. No robbing cylinders off one piece to put on another piece. Times have change neither for good or bad. |
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wis south border | And this little tractor also has a single on front. Why they only put on a ten inch tire did have me baffled.
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Dallas Center IA 515-720-2463 | Back when hydraulics first came to the farm, the cylinder was considered part of the tractor.
Some of the early systems could only run one cylinder.
As the first Deere row crops with Power-Trol. You had the one cylinder inside the tractor for the rockshaft, cultivator lift, or other mounted stuff. And one cylinder on hoses. Cylinders for implements were called Remote Rams.
Done using the pull type plow. Un-pin the cylinder from the plow and hang it on the tractor hook for the next use.
I remember pricing a new 4020 about 1964 [One of my Weaker Moments] Dealer priced it with 3-point, two remote vales on the tractor, but only one remote cylinder.
And at first quick couplers were not used - What we often call Pioneer Tips today.
Deere had some kind of deal that plugged into the deal behind the seat. And I kinda think the rockshaft would not operate if the remote ram was in use. Sure could be wrong on that one.
I think IHC used a cylinder on hoses to lift the cultivator. Not sure.
In 1959 a new Oliver 880 came with a two valve hydraulic system. One set of outlets at the back.
The left lever was for a cylinder stored on a hanger on the left fender. Short hoses to the hydraulic deal under the dash.
Right lever for the rear outlet. Cylinder stored on hanger on right fender.
Our first hydraulic was a new in 1950 Allis-Chalmers All-Crop Harvester model 60. It had hydraulic lift on the cutting platform. The old All-Crop was a hand lever.
And I think the hose connection was a NPT union. WD tractor.
Soon there was a Pioneer type tip setup. A male on the tractor, another male on the hose. And a double female between.
The single front wheel were to cultivate veggie crops planted in narrow rows. Also to run in beds.
Not very many of them in row crop corn and bean country.
I don't think I ever saw one until people started to get serious about tractor pulling. |
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| Last tricycle front end tractors we had were a JD 730 and an IH 706. With a 227 picker on the Deere, the front would go down in a heartbeat. Same tractors were easily rolled, have to think liability was a concern. Witness the speed at which ROPS became standard. |
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S.E. South Dakota | batcat - 10/2/2014 06:57
Dad listed the corn when I was little. Our JD 730 had the Roll-a-matic front end. During first cultivation the twin tires would ride the ridge great and keep you on the row. A single or wide front liked to wander off the ridge. +1 Dad used single front to pack listed corn. Put a homemade dual on one side and packed four rows. |
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| My '68 4020 has hose couplers similar to Pioneer but that are more easily pulled out. So easily they can fall out while working in the field. The early 4020 could have one or two remotes, handles on the left side of the dash with the valves on the fire wall. The later side console 4020 (and 3020) moved the handles to the side console because the valves and the couplers were together on the back of the final drive housing where there was room for three, but at least the last two were optional, so many 4020 were sold with just one. The 4020 remotes are completely independent.
My '68 MF-135 has the typical Cross after market valve with two remotes but three valve handles. The left handle selected three point or remotes, the middle and right valves run the remote when the left valve is in the remote position otherwise the left valve lifts or lowers the three point if the original pump control levers on the right end of the axle are set for continuous pumping, The left handle can be parked in the three point lift position, then the original lift and draft controls run the three point where those controls control the internal pump.
There definitely was more than one way to set up hydraulics on vintage tractors and the makers didn't agree on what to do. They also didn't agree on suitable pressures or flow capability. The 2250 PSI of the 4020 would blow up cylinders made for early two cylinder tractors with 1200 PSI, and the 3000 PSI of an Allis would blow cylinders made for the 4020. The 20 GPM of the 4020 seems luxurious compared to the 4 GPM of the MF-135 and the Allis. And many tried to use unique connectors, but Pioneer eventually became the standard because it worked better.
Gerald J.
Edited by Gerald J. 10/2/2014 10:37
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| Lots of the single wheel fronts were a wider tire. Probably because using a single tire from the standard two tire front meant it would cut a groove from the tractor weight in anything but concrete, e.g. really packed with one narrow tire, like it did with steel.
Gerald J. |
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South Dakota | we had one on a Super MTA and loved it for planting but the real reason for it was when we mounted toe corn picker you could turn shorter and the mud did not bother as much . |
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| Yes if you mounted a cornpicker on your tractor the single wheel made mud a non issue an would follow the row better with a single wheel. |
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Liberty, MO | Robert didn't the Oliver's have Aero Quip couplers, the kind that you hooked both hoses at the same time by using a big screwdriver or a bar with a flat end used for prying, and they leaked a lot, that was on my 770. |
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Kingston,Mi | 9 or 10 inch Cast Iron wheels, and a limited number of widths because as a tire gets wider it also gets taller and it has to fit under the frame to keep the frame level for attachments such as that front mounted cultivator or Pat's favorite, the bean puller. Once the tractor frame size and height were established by several manufactures, the single wheel was limited to only a few sizes. My personal idea behind their design is to increase the vocabulary of tire repairmen, wrestling that heavy unwieldily cast iron rim that can not be dismounted with a machine, was generally heavier ply ratings with thicker beads on a small rim. Definitely will increase the range of your descriptive vocabulary and your consumption of nerve calming alcoholic beverages. Been there, done that, have the scars on my legs from bead breaking duckbill hammers clanking of the rim. |
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| The fifth image down in this link always reminds me of a tri wheeled ag tractor.
Notice the negative camber!
http://www.vg-photo.com/airshow/2013/4-18-2013/connie.html |
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Dallas Center IA 515-720-2463 | Yes they did.
And those Aero Quip couplers were the only couplers in my farming career that will do what many say they will do - Coupler under pressure.
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Near-north Ontario, French River | I don't follow older tractors, can someone tell me what time period the single wheel trikes were most common in? I'm wondering if was a WW II related phenomenon? Rubber shortages and that type of thing. Many steam engines had wide fronts so it's not as if wide fronts hadn't been invented yet. |
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| A lot of nonsense in this thread though some of you know the story. While a few may have ordered them because of mud or because they were cheapskates in 99% of the cases they were ordered for use in crops that we planted in rows narrower than 30 inch. As you can see in the photos you could leave a 20" or so row for the front and rear wheels and the rows between them could be as close as you wanted. Why didn't they just use a wide front? Probably because a single front gives you a few more inches of clearance and you could keep cultivating until the crops were up above the rear axle housing.
Edited by nosoup4u 10/2/2014 14:35
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Panhandle of Ne. | In our case, our JD G came with this kind of front tire set up.
http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=8468071
Then we "updated" to a JD 3010 that came with the wide front, but we also got the optional single tire front end. The reason we had a tractor with a single front was 2 reasons. We had a 4 row 38" front mount cultivator that was much much easier to put on a tractor with a single front. The other reason was a 2 row mounted IH 21 cotton stripper. {that will bring back memories to cotton farmers!} It mounted similar to a 2 row corn picker. With the single front, it would not knock the cotton off of the stalk as would the wide front when harvesting. Ahhhhhh the memories!!
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Near-north Ontario, French River | I look at that pic and fail to see how you gain any clearance by using the single front wheel vs a wide front. In the pics the thing limiting the clearance is the implements not the the front wheel/axle. |
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Dallas Center IA 515-720-2463 | You are right about no more clearance than a wide front. However:
Wide fronts were not very popular on row crop tractor before about 1950.
Really a little latter than 1950. Both IHC and John Deere did not push the wide front end.
Yes you could get row crops with wide fronts. Deere AW, BW & maybe GW models.
For IHC there was the MV and I think HV.
But these wide front took 40 acres to turn around, well maybe 44.
People wanted the narrow front for ease of mounting cultivators and other stuff.
That is the reason the Farmall Regular had a narrow front, for row crop work.
It gets me that people seek wide front older tractors for collections, but there just were very few of them back before about 1950.
Edited by Robert W Greif 10/2/2014 18:38
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Wallis, TX | nosoup4u - 10/2/2014 14:33 A lot of nonsense in this thread though some of you know the story. While a few may have ordered them because of mud or because they were cheapskates in 99% of the cases they were ordered for use in crops that we planted in rows narrower than 30 inch. As you can see in the photos you could leave a 20" or so row for the front and rear wheels and the rows between them could be as close as you wanted. Why didn't they just use a wide front? Probably because a single front gives you a few more inches of clearance and you could keep cultivating until the crops were up above the rear axle housing. Not quite correct on you 99% being in narrow rows. Almost all tractors in cotton country were single front until the 60's and all cotton back then was 38 or 40" rows. |
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| One thing no one has mentioned is that the little front mount cultivator might on and off on a daily basis or traded for the corn cultivator. Seen my dad and grandpa horse em by hand. no wallering round a wide front. Also as far as I know there was no provision for dividers on the edible bean cutter for a wide front. Also in our part of the world corn was on 38s and beans, beets on 22s, 2 less wheels to adjust on a one tractor farm. Different strokes for different folks and as shown some many times on AT that one size doesn't fit all. |
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Why did tractors come with a single front wheel?
