Narrow or Wide Front

I have always wondered what everyones preference in front ends was/is on a tractor. Does having power steering change the preference. Just kind of a poll and seeing everyone`s point of view.
 
A narrow will turn tighter.But will leave 3 tracks. A wide is more versatile(for me anyway) in as they only leave two tracks.I don't think there is much difference in stability however(lots of guys seem to be worried about that).It also really depends on what job you need your tractor to do that determines which front you need/like.However,I tend to like wides the best.
 
I don't have any experience with narrow fronts, but the wife's father tipped one over in the field one time and got pinned underneath. When he didn't show for dinner by 9pm, his wife knew to go looking for him. He was hurt, but not bad enough to slow him down much....thank goodness. However, he never got on a narrow front ever again!
 
I had narrow front on my SMTA which was nice for sharper turns with baler. I also used it with a pull swather and with wide fron you don't trample over your last windrow. I have a friend with an M and a heavy Lions Industrial loader. He had a wide front of it for a while but had to go back to a narrow front to keep from breaking spindles. In our area we use corrigations to irrigate but they are rougher to go over especially with loader. I think each kind has it's own advantage depending upon what you do with it.
 
(quoted from post at 12:58:29 08/07/17) I don't have any experience with narrow fronts, but the wife's father tipped one over in the field one time and got pinned underneath. When he didn't show for dinner by 9pm, his wife knew to go looking for him. He was hurt, but not bad enough to slow him down much....thank goodness. However, he never got on a narrow front ever again!

70% of a tractors weight is on the rear axle. Wide front or Narrow makes no difference in stability.
 
I like the look of a narrow on everything
but a 450, for some reason a 450 just looks
nasty with a wide front. As far as
function, narrow is easier to maneuver if
you ask me.
 
Narrow front turns shorter, we had narrow fronts on everything from H Farmall to a 656 and about everything in between. I know people say they tip easier but with 8 sons and hills steep enough to have 6 terraces there was only one roll over with all those teenage boy operators.
 
I've run wide fronts and narrow fronts, I prefer the narrow front.
Maybe it's because it is what I grew up with, but that is what I like.
 
A narrow front will turn with the inside back wheel in the same spot. Wide front nope. by the time a wide front is tipping so much that the axle hits the casting of the
bolster, it has picked up enough momentum to keep going. It truly makes little difference. However, a utility tractor has a lower center of gravity and is more stable.
Keeping ones head into what you are doing is essential. Going sideways on a 20% hill is ignorance. Jim
 
One of each! Got a Norden wide front on my 300 Farmall. I like it for most things and I feed with it in the winter and it seems like it doesn't get mired down as
easily as the narrow front does. I do not like the wide front when working in the garden, especially for cultivating and planting. I'd much rather have the narrow
front for those chores. I have a JD B with the narrow front and really like the agility. Now as far as power steering, I wouldn't know if it makes any difference
since I don't have that on either tractor.

Mac
 
Depends on what your doing with the tractor. Narrow front is good for hay cutting and hay raking due to be able to make sharp turns. But for baling the hay the wide front is better because you do not run over the windrow.
Also if you have a loader on it the wide front is better because it is more stable
 
When I was growing up we had SC that Dad had bought with both narrow and wide front ends and FEL.
He would not use the FEL with the NFE. So when it came time to cultivate corn and mow hay the WFE came off and the NFE went on.
The NFE was excellent for cultivating or mowing hay as at the end of row or corner in hay field, just crank the NFE hard right and
touch the right brake and the tractor would swing right into the next row to be cultivated. Same with mowing hay you could make
square corners without stopping.
The NFE was not much good in mud or snow as it tended to bulldoze in front of the wheels.
Once we started spraying the corn and stopped cultivating, we never had a NFE tractor again.

JimB
 
When I was a kid on the farm, my Dad's Super M had a wide front end that I thought looked pretty cool. And I remember liking the way it handled when I drove it.

My M has a narrow front end and a loader with a big snow bucket. I don't do much heavy lifting with the loader, but it seems to me I'd be less likely to break something on the narrow front if I tried to lift a little too much.

That may not really be true, but it's kept me from spending the money to buy a wide front end so far. Ha ha.
 
I like narrow fronts for their maneuverability and wide fronts for their smoother ride. Early WFE's on row crop tractors didn't turn very sharp, by the early 1960's most were better. Demand for narrow front ends on new tractors died out in the late 1960's.
 
The only different between the two really is I wouldn't use an NFE with a loader. You can but really have to mind your Ps and Qs as it's not forgiving. The other minor element is a wide front basically cuts the up and down travel over bumps in half unless a bump can catch both wheels at the same time. So translation is that a wide front rides just a tiny bit smoother on the average.

Hard to beat the agility of a NFE though and I think they have a cool look to them as well.
 
They each have advantages and disadvantages. As has been stated before a nf has better maneuverability in tight quarters. Going through mud they aren't as good as a wf. It just balls up in front of a nf.
 
I really like a narrow front on the square baler tractor. Many , many times in a day's baling you can straddle a bale (let a bale pass between your left rear tire and drawbar assembly ) and save a get-off to move a bale out of the way.
 
I've always liked the looks of a wide front better but that is just a personal thing. As others
have said, when it comes to maneuverability the narrow front wins by a huge margin. My FIL's
narrow front Farmall H turns in half the circle that my wide front Farmall 350 does. However, I do
a lot of driving back and forth between home and our club grounds on 5 miles of sand/gravel/dirt
roads and a narrow front will beat you up since the wheels are driving in the rough area between
the two smooth tracks.
 
My senior design project many years ago was developing a model to predict tractor stability on
side hills and while turning. A complete loss of stability was defined as when the weight
carried by either rear wheel was reduced to zero. One of the variables in the calculations was
the height of the front axle oscillation pivot even though the track width of the front axle
didn't factor in. To simulate a narrow front end the pivot height was entered as zero. In the
end the math and physics prove that there is a notable difference in the stability between the
two front end styles. If you consider the axis about which the tractor tips around (a line
between a rear wheel and the front axle oscillation pivot), where the centrifugal force acting
upon the center of gravity is in relation to this line when turning, and the change in
relationship between the CG and this line when on a side hill the differences between narrow and
wide front stability become more apparent.
 
(quoted from post at 13:15:00 08/07/17)
(quoted from post at 12:58:29 08/07/17) I don't have any experience with narrow fronts, but the wife's father tipped one over in the field one time and got pinned underneath. When he didn't show for dinner by 9pm, his wife knew to go looking for him. He was hurt, but not bad enough to slow him down much....thank goodness. However, he never got on a narrow front ever again!

70% of a tractors weight is on the rear axle. Wide front or Narrow makes no difference in stability.

According to the wife, her Dad was at the end of a row and making his turn when the front wheel(s) got caught in a rut. The tractor, while in that turn, lost stability and tipped. He got pinned underneath. She was there with her Mom when they found him, along with the other 6 or so kids, so I'm pretty sure she remembers what happened.

She doesn't remember specifically which model it was, only that it was red and looked a lot like my 460, only with NF.
 
This is one of those subjects that ranks right up there with Ford vs. Chevy, or Hytran vs. anything else.

One additional advantage to a narrow front is you can fit more tractors in a barn if you are a collector. Three tractors will fit in just a little bit more space than two, by nesting them together front to back to front.
 
You're right about that!

I guess this is one of the things that sets me off though, as per another thread. I hate it when someone makes an over-reaching, all-inclusive statement as though that's the way it is no matter what. I agree with the pros and cons that everyone has mentioned - they make practical sense. But to say that a NF is "[i:e6ed7fb512]just as[/i:e6ed7fb512]" stable as a WF in every instance is just plain wrong.
 
Brendon, were the notable differences in favor of a WFE, in favor of a narrow front or did it depend on the situation? Thanks!
 
(quoted from post at 22:14:42 08/08/17) This horse gets beat to death every two years or so.

Though it`s starting to veer towards a stability comparison thread between the NF and WF, I just wanted to hear the many different reasons the folks like what they like and stability is surely a valid reason, whatever front end you believe is better.
 
With the geometry of a WFE the forces trying to tip the tractor always create less moment (torque) about the tipping axis which leads to greater stability. It is all due to having the tipping axis being elevated at the front instead of along the ground. This is true for both turning a corner or driving on a side slope. The farther forward the CG is (with a loader being an extreme case) the greater the difference.
 
With narrow front end you can haul more tractors on trailer. You can get closer to fences when turn on end offield. I find wide front ends
tare up yard more when you make hard turns on grass.
 
Very scholarly approach and confirms the feeling I had when my SH started to tip over while moving down and across a 20+/- degree hill with a 7 foot disc on an after market 3 point hitch. I was able to turn down hill quickly enough to stop the left hand rear wheel from leaving the ground. Probably not a problem with drawn implements.
 
(quoted from post at 11:54:50 08/07/17) I have always wondered what everyones preference in front ends was/is on a tractor. Does having power steering change the preference. Just kind of a poll and seeing everyone`s point of view.

i have 3 farmalls: super C, M, and a 460. all three have narrow fronts ends. When it comes to row crop there are none better. got front mount cultivators on the SC and 460. its a lot easier to see ahead of you then behind you. Just my two bits worth.

bass
 

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