1940 John Deere AR - New Rear Wheels and Tires

The title is a bit deceiving. These are not brand new tires and wheels, but they are new to me. You see, Frank, the guy I recently bought this tractor from (and who I've bought several other tractors from), bought a new tractor and wanted to sell this JD AR. He gave me a very good deal on it and I just couldn't pass it up. He said he would like the rear wheels/tires that are on this AR to put on his new-to-him JD AOS (yes, it is a very rare one). I did like the French & Hecht round spoked wheels but the tires were too small for my liking. The AR just needed bigger tires to fill out the massive rear fenders. Fortunately the AOS came with larger rear tires, and so we just swapped wheels/tires from one tractor to the other. This first photo is the "before" photo with the F&H wheels with 11.2-24 tires.

This next photo doesn't show a whole lot. I was trying to get a shot of the skinny rear tires.

Look at them massive rear fenders.

My poor little 1984 S15 diesel pickup. I'm guessing the two wheels and tires are upwards of 800 pounds or more.

These next two photos show the new rear wheels and tires. The wheel centers are a huge chunk of cast iron, and I'm guessing a wheel and tire weighs 400 pounds (I'll talk a little about that later).

I used the 1965 International 140 Industrial to get the tires out of the truck. I could finagle the tires around and get the forks under them, but when I tried to lift the entire weight of one tire and wheel, the ol' loader said no. I was able to slide them out of the truck with the forks though and then move them into position. The lifting capacity of the Model 1000 loader is 450 pounds at the bucket hinge point. Having the forks extended out beyond the bucket diminished the loader's lifting capacity.

Trying to slide a 400 pound rubber tire and wheel sideways across gravel is beyond difficult. Once some wheel studs were aligned with holes in the wheel, I used a bottle jack to give some gentle lateral persuasion. And fortunately the BN was right next door to push against (on the second wheel, I parked the International close so I could use it as the anchor).

Here's another before shot.

And below is the glorious after shot. Maybe to most people it isn't enough of a difference to do all the work of swapping, but I think it was well worth it. You can tell the difference easily by looking at the belt pulley (the round thing in front of the tire), and how far it is from the tire in both photos.

The wheel size is the same for both wheels, 24 inches, but these tires are 12.4-24 and apparently that makes them 4 or 5 inches taller than the 11.2-24's, and obviously 1.2 inches wider.

The new wheels sit in further than the old round spoke wheels. With the old wheels, the overall width was 68 inches, and the tractor was difficult to drive into my 72 inch wide dump trailer. The new wheels have a better offset for this tractor, and the overall width is now 63 inches. The tires fit neatly under those large fenders as they should.

These before and after photos below aren't showing the exact same perspective but there are obvious differences. The left photo is the F&H round spoke wheel/tire, the right is the "new" wheel/tire. The left tire is sitting out beyond the fender, while the right tire is flush with the outer edge of the fender. You can also see the distance difference between the flywheel and tire in both photos.

Frank, the guy who got the round spoke wheels for his AOS, is happy getting those F&H wheels back and I'm happy getting these new wheels and bigger tires.