PULLING A HAYWAGON

T

Tinkertoy

Active member
It's that time of the season...the harvest is done, the fields are tilled...and it's time for fun... :help: .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 :help:
 
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.

[youtube]JLVp-UlfOsw[/youtube]
 
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 :shock: 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.
 
Rabbit Holler Flash":3t5y7jm2 said:
A lesson all farm boys learn early in life.
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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.
 
Barnyard":2a9mx0nc said:
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?
Click to expand...

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.
 
Barnyard":2g7d99cf said:
How would 7 degrees differ from 7 percent?
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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.
 
Barnyard":39qat0x2 said:
How would 7 degrees differ from 7 percent?
Click to expand...

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 [strikethrough]less[/strikethrough] more, but I don't know how you would measure or determine that. I guess we need some clarification.
 
Don McCombs":3hh1op7l said:
Barnyard":3hh1op7l said:
How would 7 degrees differ from 7 percent?
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
7 degrees is about 1.2%. However, look at it this way(if I did the calculation right): 7 degrees for 1,000 feet up the road is an elevation change of 122 feet. A free roll (with no drag) for a 122 foot drop gets you 60 mph. Think about trying to stop 2 or 3 tons from 60 mph within 1,000 feet using Cub brakes.

edit:
Based on the posts while I was writing this, it appears I need to redo my arithmetic.

reedit: I got % off by 10x. 7 is evidently 12%. My other numbers look OK.
 
I'm about as chicken with my equipment as anyone. I've always been told "big tractor and smaller wagon, or smaller loader, or smaller whatever...". You don't want people to read about the accident in the local paper and say to themselves "what where they thinking...".

Having said that I have a light weight aluminum trailer (about 500 pounds with hay bales, close to 2,000 pounds with people) that I will give rides around the field. The field is bumpy so I'm always in 1st gear, and there are some areas with a grade to go up and down. I haven't measured the amount of grade, but the tractor does fine. In 1st gear it just pulls along either going up or down. I always carry several chocks just in case I'd ever have to block the tractor and trailer, and unhook the two. You can push the kill switch on the tractor while in gear if you are on a slope. Better than pushing in the clutch and free-wheel backwards and jack knife.

So, perhaps you can use a lighter trailer with fewer people at a time, and go slower, rather than get a bigger tractor. There may be the temptation to go faster on a level pavement.

Also make sure that you have a full tank of gas if you are going up a hill. I was low on gas and got caught going up a slope the other day. It sounds as if you have checked out all of the road laws in your area for slow moving vehicles.

Todd
 
Hi People...thanks for the input...now that I have changed my undershorts, I might be able to answer the question...I meant what I said in the pitch of the hills (7 degrees) They really look like knolls and not hills at all and the length is about 100 feet spread...so the guys that said it wasn't much hill at all are correct...and no, I am not 15 nor have the 'berries' of a 15 year old, however, I do practice safety and have a sensable head on my shoulders, which tells me all systems are go to a Cub-driven hayride...what I have learned is to do 2 trips of 10 people instead of a full house...Just for the record, I don't plan to engage in a run for my life flashing before my eyes....Don't worry guys, I WILL BE CAREFUL and THANK YOU for your support, stories and questions that arose..I will let you know how my hayride turns out...
 
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