F-20 stuff.

are the round spoke rim's on f-20's the early one's???
Ive heard this from different people.
I guess that's good,

F-20's were available with different wheels from the factory, and many had steel wheels replaced by rubber tires. The early F-20's used a flat fan belt, later ones used a V-belt.

the round spokes are the french and hecht rims that are found on all different makes of tractors and machinery.years make no difference. they are a lighter wheel as it is just spokes and is one unit that slides on axle. verse the heavy cast hub and a demountable rim that came from factory.

The round spoke wheels were the first optional wheels offered by French & Hect when rubber tires were desired instead of full steel. In comparision back in the day they were considered very pricey, most new buyers chose the cheaper steel wheels.
You have to realize many farmers were still used to using horses and area salesmen were hard pressed to sell a tractor with rubber tires, when the full steel was so much cheaper.

(quoted from post at 15:33:06 10/22/12) are the round spoke rim's on f-20's the early one's???
Ive heard this from different people.
I guess that's good,

Click to expand...

Generally the Round spoke rims were made by French and Hecht and were available from IH for pneumatic tires around 1932, became popular around 36 and IH then produced a cast center with rims in late 37-39. Many tractors had round spoke rubber fronts and steel rears around here. If an F20 has flat spoke wheels with a rubber tire they are cutoff steel wheels that had the steel cut off and a pneumatic rim added.
There are also rims out there made by many other manufactures like Kay Brunner, Goodyear, Firestone, and others.

Just a comment. I grew up with tractors from the 30s. By the time I got to using them, around 1940, most had been converted to rubber. The cheap way was to have the spokes cut off and have rims welded on. This was a very light wheel, and traction was not as good as it was with the heavy castiron wheels that were available toward the end of the 1930s (note that I am weaseling out here--don't have any exact dates for this). Putting water and calcium chloride in the tires was one remedy that I think was available in the 1940s (anybody know?). Some farmers added homemade concrete weights, attached to the spokes with some sort of J-bolt. I do know that IH offered beautiful factory-made weights for the new letter series, and I do remember seeing a lot of those tractors with the weights. One of the things that us oldtimers may remember is that the very first commercial tractor tires (around 1936) had very low cleats, and I would imagine that their traction wasn't as good as the traction available when the higher treads came out (I remember my father's 1938 F-12 had fairly-high cleats on the 9:00-40 Goodyears. Traction was very good; I expect that the heavy castiron wheels contributed to that).