My tractor is pigeon toed!
 

I am in the process of tearing down and re doing my 149, but saw another post that reminded me to ask something about mine. When you are on level ground and looking at my 149, the front tires lean outwards (away from the tractor) at the tops of the tires, they both seem to have the same amount of lean to them. I have a 125 that I have been selling parts off of and looking at it, the front tires are more or less stranding straight up and down, no lean or very minimal lean. I never gave it a thought until I saw it mentioned in another post, many farm tractors have the same lean to their tires, figured it helped in turning, since the 149 is a couple generations newer than the 125, figured it might have been a design change. Figured it doesn't hurt to ask.

Is the lean of the tires normal for the 149, or is that indictitive of some type of issue with the front suspension? Bent spindles, bad bushings in the front axle, etc? I have not yet gotten to tearing the front suspension apart on it, but if it has issues, would like to get those ironed out prior to putting it back together. I have had the front wheels off, the spindle shafts look good, and the front wheels had good bearings in them, so I am sure those parts are good, but seeing it mentioned, made me have some second thoughts about it.

Also, if the issue is with the axle itself, will the axle from the 125 interchange with the 149? i can tell by looking that the spindles are not even close to working, but was wondering if the axle itself would work. I have not had any bites on the 125 axle, but if I were to sell it and it would fix my 149, I would be a little bummed out over letting it go. Thanks for the help guys!:biggrin2:

That is normal. Nothing to fix.

Jeff

My 128 front wheels do the same thing. As a matter of fact, the original tires were completely wore on the outside and the inside half looked almost new. Is just the design of the front end.

Here's a good pic of my 128, you can see the lean to the front tires compared to the rears.

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/b...Image004-1.jpg

It's called positive camber.

\---/ = positive camber
/---\ = negative camber
|---| = zero camber

Off-road vehicles such as agricultural tractors generally use positive camber for the front wheels (steering wheels). In these vehicles, the positive camber angle helps to achieve a lower steering effort.

Cheers

I knew it was called either camber of caster....I get those confused, I never can remember which is which. Thanks for the info guys, I figured it might be normal, but never hurts to ask!

By the way, thanks DX3 for the pic, that is what my tractor's front tires look like (the lean I was referring too).

One more question, while talking about the front suspension....when I reassemble my tractor and adjust the tierod ends on the center link (what it is called on a truck, anyways), should I set the toe in on the front so both tires are pointed dead ahead, or should I have the front tires slightly toed in or out. I am guessing either straight ahead or more likely to have them slightly toed in (maybe 1/8" toe in measuring from the center of the front of the front tire to the center of the rear of the front tire), but figured while I was on the subject, might as well ask this too.

I noticed a while back one of my front wheels has positive camber and the other does not on my 1450. I thought the one that was leaning in a little was the one to look at as possibly having a problem. Now I don't know what to think.

my tractor looks like \---l