PULLING A HAYWAGON

It's that time of the season...the harvest is done, the fields are tilled...and it's time for fun... .I HAVE A QUESTION>>>HAS ANYONE OUT THERE EVER PULLED A 'PEOPLE FILLED REGULATION HAYWAGON' (approx. 20 people onboard) ?????? WITH , OF COURSE, WITH A CUB ??? I am having a hayride...all my friends, family and neighbors are coming and I rented a haywagon to pull with ole 'Moxie'(my Cub) ....I am experiencing nightmares about Moxie not being able to pull this wagon...it will be on solid pavement only throughout the ride...slight inclines (about 7 degrees) I will be going up and down....PLEASE tell me Moxie can do this job....She runs like a top under heavy throttle as well as light conditions....should there be a limit of people I should take on ?? (approx planned for about 20 at a time) The hayride is non-alcohol, non-Halloween, good old fashioned Harvest Moon Hayride....the ride is planned in 2 weeks..Oct 27th and 28th....I have met all the safety standards and have read of accident cases of negligence and bad equipment...horrible...(one fellow decided to have a campfire on board his haywagon....NOT !!!! WRONG !!! Least to say I have a few more sense than that !!! Please, fill me in...thanks, Tinkertoy

Go to the 8:30 mark in this video. Keep in mind, your brakes are not designed to stop a large load such as a hay ride. Keep it slow and off hills and you should be okay. As always, use extreme caution when doing this with people on board.

If you are going to use the Cub, I would limit the load on the hay wagon. 20 people X 200 lbs = 4000 plus weight of wagon and straw bales, perhaps another 500 lbs. Ball park total figure, 4500 lbs being pulled by a tractor weighing somewhere between 1500 and 2000 lbs.

Just me, I would use a bigger tractor with much better brakes.

Remember this old school rule of thumb... NEVER GO DOWN A HILL IN ANY GEAR HIGHER THAN THE GEAR NEEDED TO CLIMB THE HILL.

This technique actually works and saves the brakes. It also keeps the brakes cool so they don't start fading out when you need them the most!

I you plan to operate a hay ride in hilly territory, don't do it with a cub. If you would have to stop for any reason ascending a hill, when you would start to roll backwards nothing good will happen from that point on.

On flat it should be no problem if the brakes are good. Our club has used a General and a JD "L" to pull a wagon in parades. We usally try to use an 8N or bigger on the hilly routes. The bigger tractor also looks better in pictures.

A lesson all farm boys learn early in life. You can always get more rolling than you can stop Mine was a 8 foot wide sheepsfoot road roller behind a H Farmall .The roller was full of water for ballast. Dad hired me and the H out to a subdivision builder to roll some newly built roads. I got hooked up n rolling on the flat ground but after the first down grade i unhooked n went home n told Dad they need a bigger tractor for that. It got to pushing me so bad it attempted to jack knife and pass the tractor got clutch in and out run it to bottom of hill. Not what i would want to try with a load of people on a wagon.

Listen to your nightmares.

A lesson all farm boys learn early in life.

My near fatal experience was with an 8N Ford with a brush hog on the back so big the tractor barely had enough power to run it.

I had to make a one mile journey down a moderately hilly paved road. About a half mile into the trip was a creek at the bottom of the hill followed by a very steep grade up hill to a set of railroad tracks. As I blasted down the hill in high gear (yea I know stupid) and over the bridge, I immediately noticed I was running out of steam climbing the other side.

Halfway up the hill my 15 year old mind thought it would be appropriate to go down a gear on the fly. Of course I came to a dead stop while I chewed on the gears. I think every 8N in the world has had the left brake worn down well past the right brake pedal travel so I had one brake working as I started to roll backwards.

As I picked up speed, applying the one brake jerked the tractor so bad I thought it would flip. I had to ride it out.

With what seemed like an eternal ride, I eventually lost control leaving the right side of the roadway just before the creek. Down into the ditch and then back up the other side thanks to the wheel on the back of the mower that wouldn't let it dig in. I finally came to a stop against some saplings that I had bent over.

I wasn't hurt, the tractor wasn't hurt so I drove it out like nothing ever happened stopping to remove all the foliage stuck in odd places all over the tractor and mower before I got home.

Lesson learned: I almost died on that trip. If I had gone down the hill in the gear I would of used to climb it, I would have never got back up to road gear going up the other side and wouldn't have run out of power.

Did I mention I could have easily been killed that day? Don't do what I did.

So far everybody has probably scared the daylights out of Tinkertoy talking about hills, but now I am as curious as he is. Would a 7 degree slope be too much for a Cub with a wagon? Yes, I know it is an incline, but is it too much of one?

Just to give you an idea of what 7% slope looks like, the maximum slope allowable on the Interstate Highway System is 6%. Think about coming down some of those hills on a Cub with a 4500 pound load behind you.

How would 7 degrees differ from 7 percent?

So far everybody has probably scared the daylights out of Tinkertoy talking about hills, but now I am as curious as he is. Would a 7 degree slope be too much for a Cub with a wagon? Yes, I know it is an incline, but is it too much of one?

7 percent doesn't sound like a lot but it actually is. I think the distance traveled on the slope could be a factor. From my experience I would say if you stopped to select the proper gear before proceeding up or down the grade, as long as you were able to keep moving you would be ok with a wagon weighing slightly more than the tractor pulling it. If you had to stop ascending the hill, this could be a problem as the baking power is sketchy. Downhill the brakes would probably be sufficient.

I would have to shy away from pulling a hay ride with what I would describe as an underpowered unit. Now if I was 15 I would have tried it with a set of doubles.

How would 7 degrees differ from 7 percent?

90 degrees equals 100% slope.

Just to scare you further. Spent my summer youth baling hay for local farmers. The tongue on hay racks/wagons are usually sloppy to very sloppy. Towing the empty hay racks on level ground or up hill they trailed just fine. Loaded hay rack going down hill or on level ground, the slop in the tongue would let the hay rack move from sided to side. At moderate ground speed the loaded hay rack would slide the rear wheels of the tractor sideways.

[Don McCombs]

How would 7 degrees differ from 7 percent?

7 percent slope refers to a 7 foot rise (or fall) in 100 feet of horizontal distance (rise/run X 100). I'm assuming this is what Tinkertoy meant. 7 degrees of slope would be much less more, but I don't know how you would measure or determine that. I guess we need some clarification.

Last edited by Don McCombs on Thu Oct 18, 2012 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How would 7 degrees differ from 7 percent?

7 percent slope refers to a 7 foot rise (or fall) in 100 feet of horizontal distance (rise/run X 100). I'm assuming this is what Tinkertoy meant. 7 degrees of slope would be much less, but I don't know how you would measure or determine that. I guess we need some clarification.

I took him to mean 7 degrees as he stated. That's why I never saw it as being too steep. I too don't know how he determined the slope.