Fastrack 4220

8100

Member
Location
South Cheshire
Does the flashing dashboard on the Fastrac not get on your udders .It would distract me thinking there was a fault every time i looked forward ..Its doing well though in greasy conditions :)
 

Andrew

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
Huntingdon, UK
With a bit of thought, they could have fitted 38" wheels on the back without comprising lock, have a look at a Claas. If they had done that they would have a real good tractor to sell. Sadly Jcb just don't seem to be able to build anything without making at least a couple of glaring design flaws. So annoying

I don’t think the steering lock would be a problem with 38” wheels.

More likely the increased diameter would affect the torque in the final drives. This may have meant moving to the next size up rear axle casting, making the back end bulkier and heavier.
The wheel slippage criteria specified by Agco on that particular gearbox / engine combination may not have been met, meaning they had to go up a size on engine / gearbox etc. All of a sudden they’re making a 300hp tractor, a competitor to a Xerion, rather than a 220hp nimble machine.

A Fastrac has more weight on a front axle than a normal tractor, which means they can handle machines on the road easier than normal tractors. However, the wheels are the same size, so to get maximum traction you need the weight there.

Our 4220 pulls a Dale Ecodrill 8m on the pickup hitch. With 900kg on the front, we have 3150kg on the rear axle and 3100kg on the front. The weight is important for this reason.
 

Fendtbro

Member
Can't see making much odds to the rear diff loadings, The final drive will gear it down.. Then the 38"wheels will gear it up again. Only a bit more torque going through when comparing a 30 inch slipping and a 38 inch gripping.. not a big deal. If your talking about the casing and suspension loadings, bigger wheels are small fry compared to the stupid pickup hitch that collides with standard trailers and tries to rip the back axle off the tractor
 

Thomas Simpson

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
N.Yorkshire
Our 4220 has pulled our in furrow 6 furrow kv ld85 plough and press quite happily in some sticky going on lightish land, only ploughing down to 8inch though. The land was sloping and not flat and there was some wheel slip, had 800kg on the front and none on the weight tray.
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
As I said, our endrigs are very steep..Some places you can barely open the baler or it will tip. Much less than 30 psi and the tyres will be off the rims. All this talk of dropping pressure is fine in normal conditions but no good to us. The contractors 650x 42's are on their limit sometimes and they have a lot more capacity.
Where do you farm?

Sounds extreme.
 
Fastracs will sit down and pull as well as anything else. You just need to spend more time setting them up, getting the weight in the right place and making sure tyre pressures are correct. They are a lot less forgiving of lazy operators than normal tractors.

Exactly - secret with Fastrac is to ballast correctly . You can have too much weight on the front of a Fastrac compared to a conventional tractor - too many drivers just pile the weight on the front and all it does is have an opposite effect after a point.

The rear deck weight option is under-utilised and is the place to add weight to make them grip and pull.
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
Exactly - secret with Fastrac is to ballast correctly . You can have too much weight on the front of a Fastrac compared to a conventional tractor - too many drivers just pile the weight on the front and all it does is have an opposite effect after a point.

The rear deck weight option is under-utilised and is the place to add weight to make them grip and pull.

I keep my tools on the deck . :oops:
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Exactly - secret with Fastrac is to ballast correctly . You can have too much weight on the front of a Fastrac compared to a conventional tractor - too many drivers just pile the weight on the front and all it does is have an opposite effect after a point.

The rear deck weight option is under-utilised and is the place to add weight to make them grip and pull.

I don't understand why they would sell one without a deck weight.

I wouldn't buy one without it.
 

Andrew

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
Huntingdon, UK
Can't see making much odds to the rear diff loadings, The final drive will gear it down.. Then the 38"wheels will gear it up again. Only a bit more torque going through when comparing a 30 inch slipping and a 38 inch gripping.. not a big deal. If your talking about the casing and suspension loadings, bigger wheels are small fry compared to the stupid pickup hitch that collides with standard trailers and tries to rip the back axle off the tractor

Maybe it wouldn’t make much difference. But with things these days sometimes that tiny bit makes a difference. One of the projects I worked on, the gearbox company would approve the machine for 29.999t but not 30t. They would however approve it for 29t AND 30t trailed. It all came down to wheel slippage criteria and whether the computer said yes or no.

I don't understand why they would sell one without a deck weight.

I wouldn't buy one without it.

Not everyone uses them for heavy tillage.
 

Foxcover

Member
Our 4220 pulls a Dale Ecodrill 8m on the pickup hitch. With 900kg on the front, we have 3150kg on the rear axle and 3100kg on the front. The weight is important for this reason.

Are you saying your tractor weighs in at 6.25t including 900kg ballast?
 

Andrew

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
Huntingdon, UK
5.3t on front axle and 5.9t on the rear axle with the drill full and the weight id say
4220 on it's own weighs just over 8t

6.2t front and 6.3t rear.
Never actually weighed a 4000 with nothing on but looks like drill is quite heavy on the drawbar!

Edit:
According to the specs an unladen 4000 has 4440kg on the front axle and 3900kg on the rear axle. Which is why they will carry weight better than a normal tractor.

We’ll take JCBs figures with a pinch of salt, an unladen weight of 8.34t.
My laden weights show 12.5t with a 900kg weight. So 3t vertical load on the pickup hitch.

Interesting to note that despite 3t on the pickup hitch, rear axle load increases 1.5t.
If we didn’t run with the weight, I’m guessing the weigt split would be something like 4t front and 7.6t rear - a weight distribution that would suit normal tractors due to the unequal tyre sizes.
 
Last edited:

Fendtbro

Member
Where do you farm?

Sounds extreme.
The south side of the black isle.. plenty of good ground about here but we are some of the steepest around. Took a contractors 215r to it's knees with 4 furrows on the back and that was with a loader and a stone graip with the ballast thrown in the graip! Even the ontop limespreader dug in on the worst bits..
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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