Thurlow, I've watched your posts here and I do respect your opinion. I AM talking little stumps here, but it's relative. I'm not so much focusing on whether the stump gets pulled as to what are the circumstances that "could" cause a back flip. If it's an immovable object relative to what you're pulling it with, the question is whether following all the rules removes the risk completely or is there still the edge of the envelope somewhere that could bite. I don't believe the drawbar setup insures the safety. Your having the wheel in the air for 100 yards proves that the drawbar downforce is commonly overpowered by torque. One article I saw points out that the resulting vectors of the drawbar etc actually result in the tire contact patch becoming the pivot point which is always going to be below the pulling force. I think loss of traction and power typically cause equilibrium and save us. I also believe that if something suddenly locked up the wheel slippage the tourque could overcome the drawbar and backflip a tractor. There was a post on one of these forums in the last few days about pulling a blade and catching it on some equipment in the weeds. I did grow up around farm machinery. I haven't spent the time on tractors you have, but I have been blessed to experiece the front wheels off the ground plowing with a big red diesel cab tractor. And Allan ol' buddy, I have had a D2 trying to rear up while pulling brush and old concrete foundations. The D2 also quickly digs itself a ramp to make it even more exhilarating. I'm definitely NOT a Ralph Nader type (finalist for biggest a..hole on the planet), but I want ALL the information I can get about the situation so I can make my own decision. I think it's even more important to raise some of these issues with us novices, so we don't go from fat, dumb, and happy to dead when the top link breaks on the three point which is "impossible" to flip or we emulate Allan with his flexible top link (just kidding Allan). And oh yeah, one of my best friends was killed 40 some years ago when he caught one of those boundary conditions and ended up with a tractor on top of him. Sorry for the long post.
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