Mowing Inclines

Wondering something when mowing inclines which I have on my property.
I'm using my 640, water filled rears, about 250lbs on the front bumper using a 5' shredder.
Anyone have any idea what an Inclinometer would show when it got close to tipping?
I see tire tracks on the concrete around overpasses and wonder how big your cahones have to be before you go where they do.

I used to have a bunch of brothers that would cut the hay off my place. When they were doing it, it was the prettiest, cleanest stand of fescue and sericea you've ever seen. Anyway, I let them have it for cutting it and I asked them to bush hog everything they didn't mow. One of the boys would come after they'd bailed or rolled it and do the bush hogging with an old tricycle Allis and a pull behind cutter. I was amazed watching him mow around my pond that had some SERIOUS inclines around 3/4 of it. He never backed off or acted like it was anything unusual.

-Scott

If you google "Center of Gravity Tipping Point" you should find a good amount of information. You will need to guess where the center of gravity is for your tractor, unless you can find it documented some where. I would use (my guess) the mounting point of the top link of your 3 point hitch. That should be conservative considering how your tractor is weighted. I think you will find the angle much steeper than you would ever use your tractor at.

I have to agree,those guys
cuttin'along the hiway get on some
wicked hills!! Much braver than I
am. An old guy at a tractor show
told me that a Ford 640 will cut a
side slope that would scare you
out of doing it. I guess the hill
ain't so bad it's the hole or
stump you don't see in time.....

It all depends on the center of gravity of the piece of equipment, no standard.

I put the bucket down, so it just barely clears the ground.

It depends considerably upon wheel spacing but in nearly all cases, the tractor will slip downhill before overturning.

Most rollovers of similar tractors result from dropping the downhill tire into a hole, sliding downhill when the downhill tire hits an obstacle or low tire pressure in the downhill tire allowing the tire to peal from the rim, upsetting the CG.

Your mileage may vary.

Dean

As Dean suggested, you can set your wheels
out for more stability. Also, you could
find a set of LCG spindles for your
tractor. They drop the front end about 4".
I run LCG spindles on my 3000 as I do a
bit of bush hogging on side hills.
I also like the way they make my tractor
look like a little go cart.

3X what grandpa and Dean said, "it's not the slope it's the hole"

My '73 4000 started life as a highway department mower and it has a inclinometer on the cowl just in front of the instrument cluster. There are no degree markings, ust an arrow shaped piece of 1/8" thick flat steel attached at the non-point end to an upright with a bolt with two nuts tightened against each other so that the arrow hangs loose and can spin free and the point of the arrow always pints down. There's another cross piece bolted near the bottom of the upright that sticks out the same distance left and right of center. There's no markings or instructions for it, but I assume that you aren't supposed to take it on an incline past where the arrow would point past the ends of the cross piece, which by eyeballing it looks close to 30 degrees. I've never had it past either side of the narrow upright, which is probably only 12 degrees or so, and that introduced quite a bit of pucker on my part, but it still felt very stable, so unless you're a total daredevil and don't get scared of things like tipping over, then I would say that if it's leaning enough for you to start to fear it might tip over, then it probably has a significant amount of additional leaning it could do before it actually does tip over.

We sold a fair amount of LCG's to municipalities, golf courses etc. but even the general purpose 600-800's were pretty darned stable on slopes.

My old 850 has a loader and there is a short run of a ditch with a higher slope on the left side. I have a photo of this tractor with the right wheel in the ditch and the other on the left slope. The incline is more than enough to make you feel uncomfortable, but with CACL loaded tires, loader and 6' rotary mower, it would certainly take more than that to upset the tractor. Add a hole on the left, stump, ant hill, chuck hole/mound, might then be enough. I kept going slowly and turned out of it, very short run, but demonstrates the stability. We have lots of fields with hills and I have run large ag tillage tractors behind a farmer who worked these fields for most of his life, some are scary, but following his path was safe, even though at times it made you feel uncomfortable.

I now run a 4630 with front wheel drive, suitcase weights on the front, loaded tires and the 6' mower, use the seatbelt and ROPS to be safe, was a necessary upgrade, and a good one, very stable with the wide front axle, great tractor, an all time favorite now.