After all these years!!!! Learned something new!!

I have man handled wheel weights for my entire adult life. I guess not smart enough to save my back.

This morning I was walking beside one of the tractors on a feeder wagon and I could hear a clunking noise. I stopped my son and looked real close as I thought we had loose wheel wedges. The ones out at the rim not the center ones. It was not either of them. The inside wheel weight bolts where loose and the set of four weights where flopping around as the tractor rolled along. This tractor feeds at two farms so it was lucky that we did not loose the stack on the road.

My son had a baptism to go to so I told him I would fix them after lunch. I was not looking forward to taking the outside three weights off to tighten that inner weight. These are just the 150 lb. weights so they are not too bad but still a hand full.

I was just looking things over before starting and noticed the loader tractor with the bale spears on it setting there. One of the spears was just the size of the offset hole in the weights. So I took one spear off and used the single one to hold/guide the weights off and on. I just stopped the tractor with the hole straight up. I then put the spear in the hole and lifted just a little so the end was resting on the very inside weight. It acted as a guide to hold the spear. So all I had to do was take the three nuts off each and slide the weight straight back the spear. I removed the outer three weights and never seized the nuts and re-torqued all the bolts in under 15 minutes. I then cussed myself for not thinking of this years ago.

I do use the pallet forks inside the larger weights like the 750 Kilo and 1500 Kilo weights the newer tractors have on them. That still takes some work to get them to line up. This way sure was easier. The round part of the spear made the weights line right back up. Not just the height but the rotation too.

So I guess old dogs can learn new tricks.

Neat. I've used the forklift, as I don't have a bale spear. I know someone who tore a tractor rear end all apart looking for what turned out to be a lose wheel, or weight!

I have a heavy threaded rod bolted thru the width (4") of a 2x4. The rod is maybe 18" and the 2x4 about 24". A clevis is bolted thru one end of wood. A chain goes thru the clevis. Remove a bolt from the weight and put the rod in the hole. Then unbolt the weight and lift off. Works best on single weights.

JD seller BEEN there DONE that far to many times. I guess we re never to old to learn. RB

I will keep that idea in mind next time I have to deal with a stack of weights. Tom

Good idea - gonna remember that.

I have an attachment I made for my shop crane, but it only handles one at a time.

Those weights are heavier than they were when I was a young man.

It is great what our minds can think of to help us out. I used the bale spear last fall to weld a running gear that broke on the reach, the pivot broke so took the bale fork and held it up to weld it so I could roll it over to weld it better.

J.D.

What a lot of people don't realize is that those notches that are cast into those weights are there so if they are installed correctly they leave room to work a wrench on the pinion bolt to move the wheel on the axle without removing the weights.

That's an old method I saw used and practiced myself wayyyyyyyyyy back in the seventies especially in the early days of tractor pulling and when I was a used tractor dealer. Glad to hear you're using it.

John T

Looks like you have the timing marks on the weights lined up with the one on the wheel. Looking good!!

In your first 2 pictures,why do you have your bolts in the wrong holes?

Massey they came that way and I was too lazy to change them.

I have had moments like that at work. I will then tell the other person, that if I am so smart, why did it take twenty years to figure it out?

That is the usual "Pipe Dream" ...(leaving the weights on and wrenching the Pinion)...

Problem is, probably 1/2 of all in the Country are seized..!!

If so..ya have to remove the Wedge and manually move the wheel in or out..and with those weights, you just have to remove them..!!

Work smarter,not harder!The way my back feels,I would have been trying out ideas too.Mark

1500 Kilo/3300#! I had no idea weights were that big now days!

I'm sure somebody on the board has dealt with the heavy duty pie weights on Ford hundred-series tractors. Does anybody have any handy tricks for dealing with them and saving my back? Always willing to learn.

IA Roy the JD 8330s have one of the 1500 Kg weights on the inside and 3-4 75 Kg weights on the outside of each wheel. To get the tractor to 120 Lbs. per horse power you need toad weight.