Tricycle front end question

I believe to make steering easier. That's my guess

Lol Diydave

But pint pepsi bottles would cut out both sidewalls, simultaneously.  Don't ask me how I know...

skeeters65 wrote: Why on all the tricycle 2 tire front ends are the tops of the tires tipped out? Thanks

Four reasons:

When row-cropping, the tractor's nose must fit between the crops, as must the tires. If the tires were NOT tipped out, the wheels' contact points would be farther out, and the steering pedistal would have to be much skinnier. This causes the tires to roll closer to the crops' root structure, thus, damaging the crop.

Second- since the contact patch is close to the axis of steering, any irregularity of the ground under either tire, results in very little reaction at the steering wheel. IF the tires were vertical, and spaced out to clear the pedestal's thick top, a simple rut in the soil would whip the steering wheel out of your hands, or break both your thumbs.

Third- when turning a wheel, if you don't 'lean' the tire, the tire's contact force pushes the tire sideways (laterally), and the tire slides because the tread is deflected from the ground. This doesn't happen with the inside tire, because it is now 'tilted' with respect to the axis of turn, the inner tire 'grips' and lifts the soil as you make the turn... and when you 'lean' the tire towards the turn, the tread radius 'climbs' against the soil to make an effective turn. A similar condition exists with wide-front tractors, where 'Ackerman steering' geometry accounts for the fact that the inner front wheel's steering radius angle must be much tighter than the outer wheel... they're turning two different circles.

Fourth- it naturally 'sheds' trash. When plowing or cultivating, anything that sheds trash is a good thing.

My dad's first tractor was an Farm All F-20, the front wheels/tires were straight. Back then corn rows were 36 to 42 inches apart.

Ken in Texas wrote: Why didn't they just make all narrow fronts a true tricycle with a single front wheel?

If you look closely at an SFW setup, there's a shaft extending down from the pedestal, which goes to a yoke, which reaches around the single front tire, to each side of the axle.

Because of this yoke, and the distance between ground and underside of tractor, an SFW setup REQUIRES a smaller diameter tire... while a NF dual has tires that are substantially taller- there is no 'yoke' in the way.

Larger diameter tires roll over ground less because the attack chord from it's contact point forward is naturally lower.

The twin wheels also turn much easier, because the tire treads are not forced to 'scrub' as the wheel is turned- one rolls forward, the other rolls back. Since the wheels are tilted, they roll around an imaginary 'cone' to grant easy steering. A single front wheel must scrub substantially at the pivot point.

The application of SFW was mostly for truck-farming operations- vegatables, etc, where the plants were physically wider and lower, not standing up tall. A dual-wheel NF has a space between where no contact occurs, which the SFW takes advantage of, and in some instances, this allowed setting up a mounted cultivator more effectively for a certain crop.

The applicability of any front end system, is all about the crop, how the crop lays, and how the rows are spaced. Realize that there are lots of techniques of mechanical cultivation that farmers used to use, some which apply to some crop styles, that do not apply to others... cross-cultivation was one of them... tractors and implements were fitted up specifically to perform. With advent of genetic herbicide resistance, and intense soil conservation practices, are now obsolete.

There are still applications where an SFW setup has advantages, but note that even the dual NF configuration is virtually gone from the dealers' new factory offerings. It's because the cropping philosophy and techniques have changed. It's like noting that nobody uses ear-corn storage techniques anymore... we don't need to.

Actually it is as simple as ease of turning the steering wheel. You can turn the rims around and the tires will set wider and see how much harder it is to turn.
In the early 1950's when picking corn it would be later in the fall and took more time to pick the corn. This being later in the year much of the time it would be muddy in the corn fields. All most all tractors were narrow front tractors in our area so the front tires would be turned around to keep the mud from packing between the tires and keep them from turning. When spring come and plowing started they were turned around as the one tire would be off the ground and made plowing a real tiring job keeping the tractor straight. Fitting plowed ground the first time over it would want to jerk the steering wheel out of your hands. Dad would leave them turned around thru the winter so the snow didn't pack between the tires. It was always the oh shucks thing after you got in the field in the spring.