Floatation tractor tyres used back in the 70’s?

[Pilatus]

As above what were they called who made them?
I suppose nowadays tractors are so big the above tyres would be cost prohibitive and practically prohibitive due to their width on public highways.

 

[TWF]

Terra Tyre? They were rubbish as they were cross ply not radial , so the tyre walls didn't flrx. The modern standard 650 tyre would have more contact area. Tractors were lighter then. Before that cage wheels?

 

[David.]

Didn't they used to be known as farmer-foolers?
Looked wide, but hard as hell and worse for the soil than dualled radials.

 

[icanshootwell]

Didn,t trelleborg tyres do a flotation back in the 70,s?

 

[norse]

Trelleborg 'twin tyres'

 

[yellowbelly]

Trelleborg 'twin tyres'

IIRC, Trelleborg Twins will be the ones @MX7 is thinking about. This Bamlett Bredal spreader came on them....

...not sure of the year that pic was taken, but the tractor was 1978 reg. It became a far better outfit when we fitted Goodyear Terra Tyres in the early 1980's....

Terra Tyre? They were rubbish

Didn't they used to be known as farmer-foolers?
Looked wide, but hard as hell and worse for the soil than dualled radials.

We went and did a lot of jobs where ordinary tyres and duals could not go...

.....that rape was seriously wet - you couldn't walk 10 yards into the field before your boots were so blathered up with muck stuck to them that they were three times the size .

Here's the difference....

....the original wheeling was made by the 7700 (the one in the pic with the sprayer, above) It had just top dressed that field of wheat with a one ton mounted spreader.For a comparison, we tried to drive up a tramline with a similar tractor, on (what was in those days laughingly called) 'flotation tyres'. That's as far as we dare go - we backed out .
We had that much work, we had to have another tractor and spreader on Terras. By then (that 8210 was 'D' reg - not sure what that year would be?) 4wd was more common on tractors....

I suppose nowadays tractors are so big the above tyres would be cost prohibitive and practically prohibitive due to their width on public highways.

Probably so. We moved, the outfit above, on a low loader....

...towed by the loading tractor. Mind you, it was at a time before every muppet and his brother, were running about with flashing beacons on tractors, for no apparent reason. In those days, if somebody saw a tractor coming with a flashing light, they knew to slow down 'cos there really was a reason.

 

[David.]

What a wonderful history lesson, I love old photos.
I raise my hat, and defer to your actual experience in the matter.

 

[ploughman1963]

We’ve managed to get fert on 3 weeks ago that we still couldn’t travel on now without the terra tyres.

 

[Flat 10]

IIRC, Trelleborg Twins will be the ones @MX7 is thinking about. This Bamlett Bredal spreader came on them....

...not sure of the year that pic was taken, but the tractor was 1978 reg. It became a far better outfit when we fitted Goodyear Terra Tyres in the early 1980's....

We went and did a lot of jobs where ordinary tyres and duals could not go...

.....that rape was seriously wet - you couldn't walk 10 yards into the field before your boots were so blathered up with muck stuck to them that they were three times the size .

Here's the difference....

....the original wheeling was made by the 7700 (the one in the pic with the sprayer, above) It had just top dressed that field of wheat with a one ton mounted spreader.For a comparison, we tried to drive up a tramline with a similar tractor, on (what was in those days laughingly called) 'flotation tyres'. That's as far as we dare go - we backed out .
We had that much work, we had to have another tractor and spreader on Terras. By then (that 8210 was 'D' reg - not sure what that year would be?) 4wd was more common on tractors....

Probably so. We moved, the outfit above, on a low loader....

...towed by the loading tractor. Mind you, it was at a time before every muppet and his brother, were running about with flashing beacons on tractors, for no apparent reason. In those days, if somebody saw a tractor coming with a flashing light, they knew to slow down 'cos there really was a reason.

I think D reg was 86. Every time I see your photos I want a 7700 or a 7600 a bit more.

 

[yellowbelly]

Every time I see your photos I want a 7700 or a 7600 a bit more

I expect they'd seem a bit dated of you got on one now.
They were good for us, pretty reliable and not full of electronic gizmos to go wrong.
We have all the repair costs from 700 series through 10 series and a few 60 series. I expect they'd make interesting reading now if the 'filing system' in the office would let me find them

 

[bumkin]

As above what were they called who made them?
I suppose nowadays tractors are so big the above tyres would be cost prohibitive and practically prohibitive due to their width on public highways.

i remember going to a farm sale in the sixties and there was a pair of balloon tyres and they had the old fashioned tread i think they were off a fordson standard the sale was at new woodhouses near whitchurch for joe simcox

 

[Mr Charisma]

We used a set of terra tyres on a 2wd Ford 7810, for what we used them for they were fantastic, but as tyres improved then they became superceded

 

[TWF]

IIRC, Trelleborg Twins will be the ones @MX7 is thinking about. This Bamlett Bredal spreader came on them....

...not sure of the year that pic was taken, but the tractor was 1978 reg. It became a far better outfit when we fitted Goodyear Terra Tyres in the early 1980's....

We went and did a lot of jobs where ordinary tyres and duals could not go...

.....that rape was seriously wet - you couldn't walk 10 yards into the field before your boots were so blathered up with muck stuck to them that they were three times the size .

Here's the difference....

....the original wheeling was made by the 7700 (the one in the pic with the sprayer, above) It had just top dressed that field of wheat with a one ton mounted spreader.For a comparison, we tried to drive up a tramline with a similar tractor, on (what was in those days laughingly called) 'flotation tyres'. That's as far as we dare go - we backed out .
We had that much work, we had to have another tractor and spreader on Terras. By then (that 8210 was 'D' reg - not sure what that year would be?) 4wd was more common on tractors....

Probably so. We moved, the outfit above, on a low loader....

...towed by the loading tractor. Mind you, it was at a time before every muppet and his brother, were running about with flashing beacons on tractors, for no apparent reason. In those days, if somebody saw a tractor coming with a flashing light, they knew to slow down 'cos there really was a reason.

It does bring back memories. I dreamed for years of getting them all round on our drilling spraying tractor. Started by buying a wheel adapter so we could use our wide combine tires at first but as I side the tyres had no flex in the tyre wall so you only had a four inch by three foot patch on the ground.
When we got the Terra's all round I was so disappointed with the compaction we only had them two years . We moved onto the Michelin Bib X or what ever it was dueled a huge improvement runnig at 7 psi. This then bought other big problems. Running duels down the road and having to pull on to the verge every time a car came past led to tractor wheel rims cracking. In the end we went back to just running singles and getting 800 wide tyres as the best compremise. A bit of a costly drive through tyre technology in the drive to lower compaction in the late 80's early 90's.
To get spraying in thoughs days it was a quad pulling a trailed 500lt 12m Hardi sprayer. Alot of farmer building thier own buggies which led eventually to the Agri Buggy ect.
One year we had a plane to put the first fert dressing on. A trip down memory lane.

 

[traineefarmer]

Terra-Tyres are great when paired to the lightweight low powered machines of their age. Obviously they are outclassed by modern tyres on modern machines, but 35 years ago they were a huge leap forward when some tractors were still running 14.9 cross plys.

That said, I've been spraying in some catchy conditions with my HiLo on 24" terras and barely crushing the clods, while others nearby with giant rigs on 900 xeobibs (or whatever they are called) are digging some very big holes. Where's the progress?

 

[TWF]

Terra-Tyres are great when paired to the lightweight low powered machines of their age. Obviously they are outclassed by modern tyres on modern machines, but 35 years ago they were a huge leap forward when some tractors were still running 14.9 cross plys.

That said, I've been spraying in some catchy conditions with my HiLo on 24" terras and barely crushing the clods, while others nearby with giant rigs on 900 xeobibs (or whatever they are called) are digging some very big holes. Where's the progress?

The progress I suppose is the damage is only 36m apart instead of every 12m.

 

[Khan]

We used to have a set of 66-43 terras. The 16.9r38 tyres on the drill tractor would be taken off and dualled up in the power harrow tractor and the terras would go on the drill tractor. Back then all tyres were 85 profile and terras were a great improvement on a light weight 90hp 4 cylinder for top work. We were still using ours up until a few years ago when they got torched in a fire, have 650 and 710s on the top work tractors now but 150/180hp is a bit over the top for grass seeding or rolling. There were different ply ratings, I think half the problems were people using tyres designed for combines and high load ratings with lightweight tractors.

 

[Skimmer]

Soil damage wasn't thought about was much then and terra tyres kept you going when it was too wet to travel, not much different to now.

 

[Pilatus]

Terra Tyre? They were rubbish as they were cross ply not radial , so the tyre walls didn't flrx. The modern standard 650 tyre would have more contact area. Tractors were lighter then. Before that cage wheels?

Thanks for your reply, so what size tyre would for eg a Fendt 7series need to have the same PSI as Ford equivalent weight (if their is such a tractor)

IIRC, Trelleborg Twins will be the ones @MX7 is thinking about. This Bamlett Bredal spreader came on them....

...not sure of the year that pic was taken, but the tractor was 1978 reg. It became a far better outfit when we fitted Goodyear Terra Tyres in the early 1980's....

We went and did a lot of jobs where ordinary tyres and duals could not go...

.....that rape was seriously wet - you couldn't walk 10 yards into the field before your boots were so blathered up with muck stuck to them that they were three times the size .

Here's the difference....

....the original wheeling was made by the 7700 (the one in the pic with the sprayer, above) It had just top dressed that field of wheat with a one ton mounted spreader.For a comparison, we tried to drive up a tramline with a similar tractor, on (what was in those days laughingly called) 'flotation tyres'. That's as far as we dare go - we backed out .
We had that much work, we had to have another tractor and spreader on Terras. By then (that 8210 was 'D' reg - not sure what that year would be?) 4wd was more common on tractors....

Probably so. We moved, the outfit above, on a low loader....

...towed by the loading tractor. Mind you, it was at a time before every muppet and his brother, were running about with flashing beacons on tractors, for no apparent reason. In those days, if somebody saw a tractor coming with a flashing light, they knew to slow down 'cos there really was a reason.

Many thanks for your very interesting post , a special thanks for going to all the trouble of finding the superb photos.
The Terra Tyres are the ones I was thinking of.
Judging by the rutted tramlines around ( even on the Cotswolds) a 21st century equivalent to the effective Terra Tyre is needed , despite what some “posts” say, but every one to their own .

 

[Will 1594]

Mx , have a look at michelin 900/65/46 7 ft 6 tall , carry 10 ton a tyre

 

[mf7480]

Thanks for your reply, so what size tyre would for eg a Fendt 7series need to have the same PSI as Ford equivalent weight (if their is such a tractor)

Many thanks for your very interesting post , a special thanks for going to all the trouble of finding the superb photos.
The Terra Tyres are the ones I was thinking of.
Judging by the rutted tramlines around ( even on the Cotswolds) a 21st century equivalent to the effective Terra Tyre is needed , despite what some “posts” say, but every one to their own .

I think the 21st century equivalent is a Michelin Xeobib. Incredible tyre