Tractor rpms and safty

There has been alot of talk about rpms I think NATPA Has is correct with 10 percent over in division 3 and 20 percent in division 4. The tractors that go to them pulls are the best around and very competitive. The other classes that go wide open have very good engines and are people who have it built to run them classes. Safety is only as good as the person that builds the tractor.
 
Hi
you said it right there NATPA this is as far as I can tell, a well respected organisation with very good rules and hopefully liability insurance and stuff for members.
What I and a few others are talking about is the small town stuff where there is not much or no safety, and guys are running what they brung unregulated/ un inspected. This is the stuff that gets everybody a bad name under the heading of "Tractor Pulling" when something goes south, in a big brown cloud of smelly stuff, when it hits the fan.
Guys like NATPA will have a many page rule book or should have, explaining a lot and saying whats legal and not. If your unit fails any part of a tech or is found cheating you pretty well fix the problem or go home simple as that!.
The group I was gonna run a day with until I saw what was going on and decided to stay home, had a 1/2 page of legal sized paper with the rules on!. At the bottom it said "ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK" so basically if you kill half the crowd you as the driver, are on the hook for this when your tractor goes bad, and any legal issues that result from said accident. In the short it means the millions of dollars compensation is coming from "YOUR" pocket not the organisation, if you have no public liability cover your self.
This is what a lot of us are concerned about not the genuine proper run pulls and the guys that abide by safety and have good tractors.
I will close by saying until I can afford to go through a tractor properly and it has all the safety stuff needed like clutch flywheel and blanket, I will not be pulling as I don"t want to be part of an avoidable Accident and the results.
I hope that kinda clears up my and maybe a few other guys problems with what"s going on in our sport right now.
Regards Robert
 
WITH the propper safety equipment, I don"t have a problem with running some RPM"s. Anyone coming to Harrisburg PA this weekend will see a different variation of pulling from the NATPA stuff - RPM"s will be humming on a bunch of tractors. And most of them SAFELY built on 1/3 the budget of the big cubic inch beasts from the mid-west. I think the stuff from the mid-west has gotten much better than it was about 10-15 years ago, but at one time I was more affraid to walk past a big cube Div IV tractor at idle at the DeKalb pull in Columbus than I was to sit track side of a Pro Farm class. I think a lot has been learned in the last 15 years, and the big cube engines have finally been reinforced to hold up better. But I still have about as much concern with a tractor that is stroked and poked and ground and welded and reinforced to the max as I do about smaller engines with more "meat" still left to hold them together and running some RPM"s. I"ve seen about a dozen "big" engines blow apart and drop pieces onto the track, but I haven"t seen any of the higher RPM engines do it (yet...).

I"m not advocating just cranking them harder without safety measures, but to think that 540 cube Oliver 88 running at 1800 rpms is significantly safer is flawed logic also in my opinion. The parts don"t fly as far, but they still fly.....
 
the problem with your theory, Dave, is that many of the tractors are big cubes AND turn crazy rpms. so thats even worse than one or the other.
 
I don"t think a big motor blowing up is the safety issue,those parts aren"t going to fly very far. But when you crank up a tractor to 3000 plus RPM"s and a cast iron flywheel or pressure plate explodes, somebody could really get hurt.
 
Guys anytime you take a piece of equipment and modify it in a way to double, triple or quadruple the horsepower you have weakened it dramatically from what it was originally designed to do. If you are turning your puller over 2500 rpm you need a steel flywheel. PERIOD!!! You can buy all of the transmission blankets you want from jegs and hook them together that you want, but they are not designed to stop a chunk of flywheel. Those SFI numbers aren't on there for no reason. If you have a high winder with a cast flywheel in it, you are playing with fire & people's lives.
 
Hi yes this is exactly where Im coming from hopefully The NATPA has this and it"s members backs covered in the rules.
You don"t have to convince me it"s a lot of the other guys.
I wish I new how to post the full Video of the 1206 International blowing apart at the end of the track on you tube as it shows clearly what happens and how many parts flew!.
I think there would be a few surprised people around and it would sort this issue once and for all with pull organisers and tractor owners!.
if you or anybody else watches this clip, and know how to post it here in a topic. Can somebody do it or tell me how to do it my self please.
I don"t mind if you say I said post it either I"m not out to make friends sticking up for guys that don"t want to be safe, Because they "cant afford it", and cause bad accidents or name for our sport. As is gonna happen when this stuff goes wrong.
Thanks if you or somebody can help me with the video clip.
Regards Robert
 
Hi
That's the one thanks for posting it up. How do you add the link.
I would like to start this as A topic so more guys will see this, and then decide whats safe and whats not, instead of some hiding from what they don't want to believe can happen . I feel it needs wide coverage on the forum to help make our sport safe at some pulls.
Thanks again.
Regards Robert
 
Hi
Your welcome. To post a link when you look just under this reply box that you type in you see "Optional Link URL". When looking at a webpage you see the address at the top of the page like http://www.yesterdaystractors.com , this is the URL. I just highlight this, copy it then paste it in "Optional Link URL". Then you can just type in a name for Link Title.
This might be as clear as mud now but anymore questions ask away or send me an email and I can try to explain it better.
 

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