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2 axle wagon?

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
OK folks......
What"s the trick to backing these things??? Made an idiot out of myself trying to back one up yesterday... Finally got frustrated and had the wife pull it backwards while I steered it with the tongue......The one (wagon) we picked up yesterday has one axle and will hold more hay (because of the high sidewalls) so one of the 2 axle ones went on ebay last night. Followed by the other one as soon as I find a compareable size/reasonable priced single axle to replace it.
Done now.....
 
Yes, they are hard to back up. There are truck drivers, though, who are very good at it, so it can be done. What we always do is attach the tongue to the front hitch of the tractor. A little practice, and you push / back up the trailer where you want. Both wife and frustration eliminated ;-)
 

I'll try that... The places I have to get into are kinda narrow tho. What I do now is pull in the barn, unload, then unhook and run it out on the street by hand. Everything slopes downhill a little so that's easy. Anywhere else and I have to grunt a little and it effects my people skills.......
 
I bsle with a bale basket, a 3-wheel Vee shapped wagon pulled behind the baler. Unhooking it is a pain, so I end up backing it up to my barn door around the silo. So it's backing up a tractor, with a baler behind, with a 3wheel trailer behind that. Talk about people skills..... ;)

Yea, backing a running gear sort of takes some practice. You need to be correcting or changing the angle of the front hitch way way early in the process, long before it looks like you need to br changing direction. Any time you get angled up too much, just pull ahead a little, not too much, and try a shallower angle.

You are controlling the front axle of the wagon, but you are directiong the rear axle as you back up. So nearly everything has to start out reversed, to make that back axle go the way you intend, not the way you are actually moving.

Practice, practice. And some days it just works better than others.

--->Paul
 
So a B double would be out of the question. I find most people when backing tend to yank the steering wheel thus overcompensating instead of a little at a time and watching the reaction of the trailer.especially with power steering.
 
One ignores the tractor and concentrates on the hitch alone. If steering the tractor backwards is able to be done with no thinking, making the tongue do what you now do manually is not hard.
I once earned 20 bucks from my uncle by backing a loaded bale wagon around the corner of the barn and up against the loading dore without stopping. Jim
 
(quoted from post at 00:15:32 08/08/11) One ignores the tractor and concentrates on the hitch alone. If steering the tractor backwards is able to be done with no thinking, making the tongue do what you now do manually is not hard.
I once earned 20 bucks from my uncle by backing a loaded bale wagon around the corner of the barn and up against the loading dore without stopping. Jim
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That explains why one of my neighbors is so good to zoom in the first try at breakneck speeds.... He can't chew chewing gum and walk at the same time, guess it has it's advantages.. could see a kid being better at it than an adult also. I gotta try some more.
 
At some tractor shows they have wagon backing contests. Usually the young guys are best, not intimidated I guess.(and their necks are more flexible)
 
When it gets really interesting is when the neighbor(sp.?) is shelling corn and invites you to bring your 14" barge wagon to put cobs in his new cattle barn and dump the box inbetween the rafters. When the front of the box was raised it wsa higher than the cross ties of the rafters. You had to back into the barn, dump, and be back to the sheller before the next wagon was full. The only tractor I had with enough hyd. cap. to lift the cob wagon was my Farmall 560D with factory wide front.I didn"t touch any of the rafters so I enjoyed the day. Armand
 
(quoted from post at 02:56:19 08/08/11) At some tractor shows they have wagon backing contests. Usually the young guys are best, not intimidated I guess.(and their necks are more flexible)
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Used to participate in truck rodeos as a soldier. It was nothing to back a 5 ton wrecker with a another 5 ton truck behind it on a towbar (all wheels on the ground) and parallel park..... A lot younger then too.....
 
It takes alot of skill and practice . It cant be done by puffin up and throwin a tissy fit like a 5 yr old .
 
(quoted from post at 04:00:28 08/08/11) It takes alot of skill and practice . It cant be done by puffin up and throwin a tissy fit like a 5 yr old .
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I'd never do that..... (throw a tissy...)
 
go slow and steer backwards when I 1st drove tractor & trailer truck I could never back up till I went slow.
 
"Anwhere else and I have to grunt a little and it affects My people skills" ??????? You been eating beans fore you tryed to back the thing up?
 
We used to back loaded hay wagons in the shed in the evening, sometimes using the JD 440 crawler. I built a hitch on the front of the IH B275 that worked OK too.
 
I'm going to combine what Janicholson & Paul suggested. If you can back a singe axle trailer without thinking much about it, just concentrate on the front of the wagon and pretend it's the rear of the tractor, and the back of the wagon is a two wheel trailer........ makes sense in my head. ;o)

I always find if I can see the wagon tongue & front wheels, it's much easier to back. If I'm backing a wagon with a pickup, I drop the tailgate if possible so I can see the wagon wheels, makes all the difference in the world for me.

Also, if you stick your tongue out the left side of your mouth and gently bite on it, that seems to help. :lol:

Practice practice practice.

Good luck.
 
(quoted from post at 05:34:20 08/08/11) I'm going to combine what Janicholson & Paul suggested. If you can back a singe axle trailer without thinking much about it, just concentrate on the front of the wagon and pretend it's the rear of the tractor, and the back of the wagon is a two wheel trailer........ makes sense in my head. ;o)

I always find if I can see the wagon tongue & front wheels, it's much easier to back. If I'm backing a wagon with a pickup, I drop the tailgate if possible so I can see the wagon wheels, makes all the difference in the world for me.

Also, if you stick your tongue out the left side of your mouth and gently bite on it, that seems to help. :lol:

Practice practice practice.

Good luck.
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Got an image to keep up....... Can't have these german folks pointin fingers and saying that American can't back a wagon..... Looking for a replacement for the other 2 axle wagon now... Already chewed the end off my tongue.......
 
(quoted from post at 05:41:23 08/08/11)
(quoted from post at 05:34:20 08/08/11) I'm going to combine what Janicholson & Paul suggested. If you can back a singe axle trailer without thinking much about it, just concentrate on the front of the wagon and pretend it's the rear of the tractor, and the back of the wagon is a two wheel trailer........ makes sense in my head. ;o)

I always find if I can see the wagon tongue & front wheels, it's much easier to back. If I'm backing a wagon with a pickup, I drop the tailgate if possible so I can see the wagon wheels, makes all the difference in the world for me.

Also, if you stick your tongue out the left side of your mouth and gently bite on it, that seems to help. :lol:

Practice practice practice.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Got an image to keep up....... Can't have these german folks pointin fingers and saying that American can't back a wagon..... Looking for a replacement for the other 2 axle wagon now... Already chewed the end off my tongue.......
Click to expand...

LOL the Europeans use a lot of 4 wheel wagons. I couldn't believe how many I saw over there. I think maybe because you don't see many farm owned small trucks (pickups). You don't see many trailers that are sized for pulling with a car or lite truck. But there are lots of farm wagons all over the place.

I'm 57 and I can back up a wagon......LOL I dod the thing of watching the toung as if I was pushing by hand.

Rick
 
Not mentioned yet is the fact that individual wagons have their own kinks,(sometimes literally), I have a couple that I can put anywhere, any time, and a couple more that to quote my father "would make a man curse, if he was in the habit of it". Most of them need to be tightened up a lot. If you can swing the tongue two feet either way before the wheels move, then you will always be going nuts. Likewise, if the reach is bent so the wagon dog tracks, it will steer quicker one way than the other.

Uneven ground may not actually affect the behavior of the wagon, but it does mess up your perception of it. They definitely back down hill better than up.

If at all possible, I push my wagons with a front hitch on my pickup. Some times we pull them in and pull the empty wagon out backwards.
 
When I was 8-9 years old my grand father worked with me backing a wagon in the wheat fields while waiting for the next combine dump. His advise was to think of the drawbar pin as your hand on your toy wagon. You move the pin the same as you would your hand backing up the toy one. Over steering is most peoples biggest problem.

I entered the backing contests in grade and high school. Had to back a hay rack wagon, a two wheeled trailer, a horse drawn type side delivery rake and belt up to something. I could always be in the top times in the backing but always had a time problem belting to something. I practiced one time at a neighbors place. He said I did good but good is not good enough if it is not fast enough in a contest. We didn't have a tractor with a belt pulley on it at home. Dad bought the tractors without them as we had nothing to use them on.

My first backing contest I had a problem with the two wheeled trailer getting it hitched. The tongue was to heavy for me to lift quickly. One of the judges was about to help lift it when I mustered up enough stuff to get it up over the drawbar. They did announced that they should have had a more balanced trailer to use because of the younger entries but I still had the longer time.
 
Dave: Anybody that can parrale a 5 ton wreaker with a 5 ton truck on a towbar with all wheels on ground can surely back a farm wagon!!!!! LOL. Armand
 
(quoted from post at 08:07:17 08/08/11) Dave: Anybody that can parrale a 5 ton wreaker with a 5 ton truck on a towbar with all wheels on ground can surely back a farm wagon!!!!! LOL. Armand
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Gonna try again in a couple days. I may be putting too much thought into it....
 
They take some getting used to, recall how you back a single axle trailer, steering the opposite way you want the trailer to go. With a 2 axle trailer, (mostly hay wagons around here) it adds one more pivot to the equation, so you have to focus on the tongue, to make sure the steering axle is turned opposite the way you want it to go, problem is it is too easy to over steer and then recover when you do. It takes practice and some tractors, various tongue lengths etc. don't make it any easier. I find that a tractor like a 620 JD with a narrow front, works well, my farmer friends son can back those wagons in easily, but that comes from all those years of doing small square bales. I tried to put one in the barn hooked to a JD 3150 mfwd, farmer was laughing, kind of tight quarters, but I should have been able to do it, we always had 3 of them here, just takes practice with the tractor used for em. When I helped shuttling wagons to field and barn, I'd leave em ready to hook and back in with that 620, when he's done baling, its 1-2-3 for him, fun to watch, just have to spot the back end, some people get really good at it.

To be honest, give me a tractor with a loader & forks, skidsteer with forks, one fork with a hole for a pin, problem solved, real easy. We have a set of forks, that I did not want to cut a hole in and I can do better with those in the tongue hitch, without a pin, sometimes it falls out, just pick it up again, they seem to be easy if using the front of a tractor with forks or a bumper hitch.
 
might have the problem solved.. Going to look at what I think you folks call a forage wagon. Believe it would be more practical for me because I could get almost constant use out of it. Can strap a tarp cover over it and either store hay at one of the out of town stalls or use it as a dry place to store manure til full then haul it away and unload it with the PTO. Will hold more hay than a normal wagon because of the sides (I make shorter bales that aren't the easiest to stack/lock), and I can use it to pick up loose hay/fresh grass that isn't worth taking the baler out for. AND it has one axle.

2438.jpg
 
Yep. That's what I did, gots a front hitch bolted on the 960.

Only thing I have seen work better is the co-op here has a big tire fork lift and they use it to move NH3 wagons. They blew a hole in the end of one of the forks. The side shift on the mast makes push'n wagons into a small spot a breeze.

Dave
 
Dave the easy way to remember how to back a four wheeled wagon is that the back of the wagon is going to go the way the tractor is going. So if your tractor is going to the right then the back of the wagon is going right too. With A two wheeled trailer the back goes the opossite way the tractor steers.

I can back a hay wagon into the shed with the baler hooked to the tractor. I have many time backed both into a 12 foot wide bay of the barn to get both inside before a rain.
 
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